Director of Engineering

Since 2008, Smule has been transforming music from a passive listening experience into a collaborative, social form of creative expression. Our mission is to bring people together through music, empowering anyone, anywhere, to create, share, and connect through song. Today, tens of millions of people use Smule to make music together, creating more than 20 million songs every day. From aspiring singers to lifelong music lovers, our global community comes together to collaborate, discover new talent, and express themselves through music.

At Smule, you'll have the opportunity to build products that inspire creativity, foster meaningful connections, and bring joy to millions of people around the world.

About the Role:

Smule is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead teams building scalable, reliable, and AI-powered consumer experiences for our global community. This leader will play a key role in accelerating Smule’s transformation into an AI-first engineering organization, driving innovation, technical excellence, and operational performance across critical product and platform initiatives.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical leadership, a passion for emerging AI technologies, and a proven track record of building high-performing teams and consumer products at scale.

This is a hybrid role with 1-2 days in office at our Salt Lake City or Bay Area offices.

What You'll be Doing:

• Lead engineering teams and managers to deliver product and platform roadmaps with high execution quality, operational reliability, and team performance.

• Drive Smule’s AI-first engineering practices by embedding AI-assisted development, automation, machine learning/deep learning systems, and modern developer productivity tools into daily engineering workflows.

• Evaluate and adopt emerging AI, deep learning, and software engineering technologies that improve product innovation, platform scalability, and engineering productivity.

• Partner with Product, Design, Data, Research, and technical leaders on roadmap planning, prioritization, release execution, AI initiatives, platform modernization, and technical debt reduction.

• Establish and uphold engineering standards for architecture, code quality, testing, security, documentation, observability, and production readiness.

• Define and track engineering KPIs for delivery velocity, product quality, system reliability, operational health, and team effectiveness.

• Build and develop high-performing engineering teams through hiring, coaching, performance management, succession planning, and leadership development.

• Lead operational reviews, incident follow-ups, and continuous improvements to engineering execution, reliability, and readiness.

What We're Looking For:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a closely related technical field.

• 8+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including technical leadership and people management responsibilities.

• 3+ years leading engineering teams, including Software Engineers, Technical Leads, and/or Engineering Managers.

• Strong AI fluency, including practical experience applying AI-assisted development, automation, machine learning, deep learning, or AI-powered product capabilities.

• Proven experience building, scaling, and operating high-volume consumer-facing products and services.

• Strong technical depth in one or more areas such as mobile engineering, backend systems, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, AI/ML platforms, or platform engineering.

• Experience driving engineering transformation initiatives, including AI adoption, developer productivity improvements, automation, or platform modernization.

• Deep understanding of modern software development practices, including agile delivery, CI/CD, testing automation, observability, and operational excellence.

• Demonstrated ability to balance speed, quality, scalability, reliability, and business priorities.

• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional leadership skills.

Bonus Points For:

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field.

• Experience building AI-powered consumer features, deep learning systems, recommendation systems, personalization platforms, audio/video technology, or creator tools.

• Experience working with globally distributed engineering organizations.

• Passion for music, creativity, and social connection.

Why Join Our Team?

• Flexible time off

• 12 observed holidays

• Comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, and supplemental insurance, available from your first day of employment at low or no cost to you.

• Employer-paid life and short-term disability insurance

• Employer contributions to employee HSA accounts

• Well-being subscriptions, including Headspace and Wellhub

• Cell phone and internet reimbursement to support hybrid work

• Home office stipend to help create your ideal workspace

Smule is an Equal Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law.

We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please let us know.