Director of Engineering
Harmattan AI
Director of Engineering
Harmattan AI
Autonomous defense systems and C2 platforms
Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces.
Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.
About the Role As the Director of Engineering for Infrastructure at Harmattan AI, you will act as a vital management layer between R&D modules and leadership, focusing on elevating our people and standardising our engineering excellence. This is a "hands-off" people management role designed to relieve pressure on senior leadership by building high-performing teams, improving internal tooling, and standardising work processes across the company without sacrificing execution speed. You will be a visionary partner to our leadership, contributing to organisational structure and the long-term technical vision. In this role, you will lead our Engineering Infrastructure team in Paris — the foundation that all of R&D runs on, covering CI/CD, test-bench systems, internal developer tools, and the engineering-facing tooling that keeps every other team productive. Every engineering team in the company is your customer.
Responsibilities
People Management & Mentorship: Act as a dedicated people manager for engineers, overseeing performance reviews, career growth, and training initiatives.
Recruitment: Own the recruitment process as the number one priority, building and maintaining an effective engineering team to meet our ambitious growth plans in a competitive platform-engineering and developer-experience talent market.
Process Standardisation: Develop and implement standardised work processes across CI/CD, test-bench, and developer-tooling teams to ensure high-quality output and consistency.
Engineering Infrastructure: Audit and improve internal tooling—deciding between off-the-shelf and custom solutions—to ensure engineers have the best resources to succeed.
Organisational Strategy: Contribute to the organisational structure by reorganising modules and initiating changes to optimise cross-functional (XFN) delivery.
Vision & Execution: Collaborate with leadership to build the company vision, bringing fresh ideas to the table rather than just executing existing plans.
Candidate Requirements
Educational Background: A strong academic record in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
Proven Leadership: Previous experience as an Individual Contributor (IC) who has successfully transitioned into a management role, allowing you to deeply understand the technical challenges your team faces.
Experience: Direct experience leading a platform-engineering or developer-experience team at a hardware-plus-software company, with proven ownership of CI/CD, build infrastructure, and hardware test infrastructure (hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop testing, lab automation). You have served at least 50 engineering customers in a previous role and know how to balance feature requests against platform health.
Technical Engagement: While this is a management-focused role, you should still possess a desire to "keep your hands dirty" and remain engaged with the technical aspects of the work.
Soft Skills & Communication: Exceptional soft skills and communication abilities, with a "high-bar" for excellence and a natural ability to elevate those around them.
Commitment: 100% dedication to Harmattan AI's mission of building autonomous defence systems and a readiness to thrive in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment.
We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.
Autonomous defense systems and C2 platforms
Harmattan AI builds vertically integrated autonomous defense systems for NATO and allied forces. Its products include layered air defence, coordinated ISR and strike UAVs, electronic-warfare tools, and command-and-control platforms, all powered by a software-defined autonomy stack. The systems are designed to operate together, with autonomous decision-making, sensor fusion, and mission execution through its C2 framework. The company differentiates itself through large-scale industrial manufacturing, secured Programs of Record with European and UK defense ministries, and a strategic partnership with Dassault Aviation to embed Harmattan’s controlled autonomy into combat-air systems such as Rafale F5 and UCAS. The goal is to provide trusted, scalable autonomous solutions for defense missions, expanding globally and embedding autonomy into partner platforms to strengthen allied capabilities.
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