About Arena

Arena is a startup created in Silicon Valley with a mission to build communities for creators, publishers and brands with the power of AI. Companies using Arena include Disney, Reuters, Fox, Red Bull and NFL. We have +2,000 customers in 150 countries, with +50M users engaging and having conversations on Arena every month.

We are a Series A company backed by top-tier investors such as CRV, Redpoint and Craft Ventures. Arena offers a unique work environment and the chance to collaborate with diverse teammates across multiple countries, with a culture of ownership, autonomy, and high performance.

Arena is expanding its AI product portfolio with MyAvatar.AI, a multimodal platform that enables users to create intelligent, personalized AI avatars through voice, video, and conversational interfaces.

Sometimes you're stuck in an engineering role where you're solving the same problems over and over. If you enjoy building great teams, solving complex technical challenges, and scaling technology — then Arena is the company you're looking for.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Director of Engineering to lead our engineering organization and scale our technology, teams, and execution as Arena grows.

Reporting directly to the CEO, you’ll define and execute the engineering strategy, drive technical excellence, and build high-performing teams — while staying hands-on with architecture, technical decisions, complex problems, and critical initiatives.

What you will be doing

Lead, coach, and develop engineering managers and senior engineers across multiple teams.
Partner directly with the CEO to define technical strategy, priorities, and execution plans.
Drive engineering excellence across architecture, scalability, reliability, security, and development practices.
Own engineering execution, ensuring teams deliver high-quality products on time.
Build and improve engineering processes, standards, and team structures as the organization scales.
Stay hands-on with architecture, technical decisions, and complex engineering problems.
Foster a culture of ownership, technical excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Must-Have Experience

8+ years of software engineering experience, including significant engineering leadership experience.
Proven experience leading engineering teams and developing engineering managers and senior engineers.
Strong hands-on background in designing, building, and scaling SaaS, cloud-based, or API-driven products.
Strong understanding of software architecture, scalability, reliability, security, and engineering best practices.
Ability and willingness to dive deep into technical problems, architecture, and critical engineering decisions when needed.
Proven track record of improving engineering execution, processes, and team performance.
Strong ability to partner with Product, Design, and business leadership to balance technical and business priorities.
Excellent communication and leadership skills, with experience working with distributed/global teams.
Fluent English.

Our Stack

Our engineering organization works across a modern, distributed technology stack, including:

Languages: Node.js, TypeScript, Golang
APIs & Real-Time: GraphQL, WebSockets, REST
Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, Lambda, Fargate, EC2, API Gateway, S3, VPC, IAM, ALB, CloudFront, Kinesis, SQS, CloudWatch, Serverless Framework
Databases: MongoDB, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Firestore/Firebase
Caching & Edge: Redis, Cloudflare
Quality: Unit testing and automated testing practices

Nice-to-Have Experience

Experience with AI, Generative AI, LLMs, or AI-powered products.
Experience with modern cloud architectures, distributed systems, real-time applications, and technologies such as AWS, GraphQL, WebSockets, and serverless architectures.
Experience scaling engineering organizations in startups or scale-ups.
Experience with high-scale web applications and real-time systems.
Strong technical depth with the ability to move between strategic leadership and hands-on technical problem solving.