THE ROLE

We are revolutionizing a 276-year-old business, and we’re growing our technology team with software engineers and leaders who will help reshape the future of Sotheby’s through exceptional engineering practices, software development, and design. 

The ideal Director of Engineering candidate will help us lead engineering teams to build a healthy and productive engineering team and culture and oversee technical delivery, vision, and product development practices.  We’re looking for team players who value opinions other than their own, look to data to support their decisions, take the initiative, and improve areas they touch.

The team is a remote-first team distributed across multiple countries, and we require strong communicators who can work in a diverse, multicultural environment.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead a team of dozens of engineers building and operating the core platforms and infrastructure that power the company’s products and services in a microservices environment. This includes data pipelines, APIs, messaging systems, databases, cloud infrastructure, etc.
• Partner with product and business leaders to understand their technology needs and develop long-term technical roadmaps and architecture.
• Drive engineering best practices in areas like security, reliability, scalability, and performance. Guide technical decision-making, standards, and trade-offs.
• Hire and cultivate top engineering talent—coach and mentor team members to help them develop technically and take on more responsibility.
• Promote a culture of technical excellence, continuous improvement, and innovation within the engineering organization.
• Facilitate communication and alignment across engineering teams. Identify and remove cross-team blockers and bottlenecks.
• Oversee systems design, implementation, troubleshooting, upgrades, and problem resolution.
• Manage technical budgets and resources efficiently.

IDEAL EXPERIENCE & COMPETENCIES

• 10+ years of overall engineering experience with at least 5 years of management experience leading teams of engineers.
• Deep hands-on experience architecting and developing distributed systems and cloud infrastructure.
• Experienced in areas like Unix/Linux, networking, databases, asynchronous messaging, containers, and automation.
• Strong knowledge and experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with gRPC and GraphQL a plus.
• Strong communication, leadership, and organizational abilities.
• BS or MS in Computer Science or related technical field.

The proposed base salary for this position ranges from $225,000-$270,000. In addition to base salary successful candidates are eligible to receive a discretionary bonus, as well as a competitive benefits package. Salary offers are based on a wide range of factors including relevant skills, training, experience, education, and, where applicable, licensure or certifications obtained. Market and organizational factors are also considered.