Company Overview: We are building Protege to solve the biggest unmet need in AI — getting access to the right training data. The process today is time intensive, incredibly expensive, and often ends in failure. The Protege platform facilitates the secure, efficient, and privacy-centric exchange of AI training data.

Solving AI’s data problem is a generational opportunity. We’re backed by world-class investors and already powering partnerships with some of the most ambitious teams in AI. The company that succeeds will be one of the largest in AI — and in tech.

We’re a lean, fast-moving, high-trust team of builders who are obsessed with velocity and impact. Our culture is built for people who thrive on ambiguity, own outcomes, and want to shape the future of data and AI.

Key Responsibilities Engineering Leadership & Strategy

• Define and execute a long-term technical strategy aligned with company goals.
• Partner with executive leadership to decide product direction, innovation, and roadmap execution.
• Establish engineering-wide structures, processes, and operating rhythms that support growth at scale.
• Partner with cross-functional leaders to anticipate what Protege and engineering will need as it scales, and proactively seed the right processes, capacity, and operating rhythms so the rest of the org grows in step.
• Set the standard for technical excellence and execution, and build a high-trust culture where teams take ownership and move quickly with rigor.

Team Building & People Leadership

• Recruit, develop, and retain top engineering talent; serve as a talent magnet within the industry.
• Partner with the People team to determine Engineering recruiting strategy and take full ownership over process and outcomes.
• Mentor engineering managers and technical leaders to support career growth and strong technical judgment.
• Create a collaborative environment that fosters diversity of thought, high ownership and accountability, and continuous improvement.

Execution, Quality & Delivery

• Own engineering execution end-to-end, from a planning process that prioritizes the most impactful work to an operating cadence that ensures it is delivered on time and with high quality.
• Build and refine engineering workflows including code review, testing automation, observability, and incident management.
• Safeguard product quality by building processes and infrastructure that ensure reliability, security, and performance and fostering a culture of ownership over the customer experience.

Product & Technology Ownership

• Oversee architectural decisions, infrastructure scaling, and system design.
• Work closely with product leadership to translate customer needs into exceptional, scalable product experiences.
• Champion a high bar for innovation, delivering a product that leads the AI data infrastructure space and sprinting ahead to build the functionality growing customers will need before they ask

Must-Have Experience

• 10+ years in engineering roles, with 4+ years in leadership managing multiple teams or orgs.
• Fluency in shaping tech strategy in high-growth or early-stage settings, with a strong ability to align technical direction to business needs.
• Track record of growing and leading multi-level engineering organizations of 30+ with strong operational rigor and technical standards..
• Demonstrated ability to build impressive, user-centric products in fast-paced environments.
• Strong background in establishing engineering discipline, quality practices, and operational structure.
• Exceptional communication, cross-functional leadership, and decision-making skills.