Director of Engineering (Modeling & Rendering, Simulation, Distributed Computing

About nTop nTop builds parametric design software for the hardest geometry problems in aerospace, defense, propulsion, and industrial energy. Our platform lets engineers define a design as a parametric program - not one aircraft or turbine, but every variant a program might need - and explore design spaces that were previously too large to search. Our product platform spans implicit modeling, GPU-accelerated physics simulation, optimization, and distributed computing. It is the engine inside everything nTop ships. The Role We're hiring a Director of Engineering to lead the engineering organization behind nTop's product platform: the teams that build our modeling and rendering engine, our simulation capabilities, our distributed computing platform, and the quality function that spans all three. You will report to the CTO, lead a team of engineering managers, and own how the platform roadmap gets executed.This is a newly created role at an inflection point for the company. Alongside the products our customers rely on today, we are building the next generation of nTop: a deeply collaborative engineering environment where teams of engineers and AI agents work together on the same design at the same time. It is a zero-to-one product with a demanding timeline, and delivering it while continuing to ship for existing customers is the central challenge of this job.Meeting that challenge means changing how we build software. nTop is moving to an AI-assisted software development lifecycle, working with leading AI and hardware partners, with the goal of improving our operating tempo by an order of magnitude. The Director of Engineering will lead that transformation across the platform teams - not as a side project, but as the way the roadmap gets delivered.The CTO sets direction. This role makes it real: translating strategy into plans, plans into shipped software, and an ambitious vision into an organization that can execute on it. What You'll Do Own execution of the product platform roadmap.Turn the direction set by the CTO and our platform Product Managers into engineering plans with clear ownership and sequencing, and hold the organization to them. When plans meet reality, decide, communicate, and adjust.Lead and grow the engineering management team.Hire, develop, and coach the engineering managers who run the platform teams, and build them into a leadership team that operates with clear expectations, individualized coaching, and disciplined project management.Drive the shift to AI-assisted development.Lead the adoption of an AI-native software development lifecycle across the platform organization: define what it looks like in practice, measure its impact, and partner with our external AI and hardware partners to accelerate it.Make the engineering process faster end to end.Own the path from idea to shipped software - planning, development, review, quality, release - and systematically remove the delays between steps. Automate what can be automated, including how we test and validate what we ship.Deliver zero-to-one and one-to-n at once.Stand up the next-generation product while keeping current products shipping and improving, and make the staffing and sequencing calls that let both succeed.Partner with Product.Work as a peer with the Director of Product Management for the platform and the platform PMs. Bring grounded technical judgment on feasibility, sequencing, and risk, and propose alternatives when plans don't account for real constraints.Represent platform engineering.Be the voice of the platform engineering organization with the CTO, the broader R&D leadership team, and the company. What Success Looks Like In your first months, you have a clear read on each team and each manager, a working relationship with your Product counterparts, and a map of where the engineering process is fastest and where it slows down.In your first year, the platform organi