Director of Engineering

Position: Director of Engineering Location: Atlanta, GA
Job Id: 398 # of Openings: 1 SUMMARY
We’re seeking a curious, future‑focused Director of Engineering to mature and scale our engineering practices and platforms spanning mobile, web, kiosks, POS, KDS, loyalty, marketing tech, data, and analytics. This leader will set a bold engineering vision, lead high‑performing teams (including strategic partners), and deliver reliable, secure, measurable outcomes that drive guest engagement, personalization, and business growth. This position will also drive the strategic integration of AI capabilities with enterprise data to unlock actionable insights, enhance decision-making across digital platforms, drive scalability and efficiency, and unlock new revenue generation opportunities.

ACCOUNTABILITIES:
Vision & Engineering Maturity Define and continuously evolve a TSC Engineering Vision & Playbook (principles, operating model, tech strategy, engineering ladder) that strengthens and matures our practices, with a sharp eye on what’s next in platform engineering, DevSecOps, SRE, data/ML, and product engineering.

• Establish a technology radar and architecture review cadence to adopt/retire tools intentionally and stay ahead of industry evolution.

Digital Scale & Resiliency

• Lead the evolution of our platforms to reliably support high-volume digital transactions and rapid growth, architecting for peak traffic, low-latency experiences, cost efficiency, and fault tolerance. Embed capacity planning, performance engineering, multi-region resiliency, observability (SLOs/error budgets), and PCI‑aware security across mobile, web, kiosk, POS, and data services.

Innovation (Products • Practices • Process • Technology)

• Catalyze innovation in guest‑facing digital products (mobile, web, kiosk) and in‑cafe systems (POS/KDS), as well as the engineering system itself (CI/CD, test automation, platform reliability).
• Incubate experimentation frameworks (A/B testing, feature flags) and rapid prototyping pipelines to shorten idea‑to‑impact.

Curiosity & Thought Leadership

• Model a learning mindset—set quarterly growth OKRs, publish “what we learned” notes, and run tech talks.
• Serve as a thought leader in a hot topic (e.g., AI/LLM, platform engineering, edge computing, or privacy‑preserving personalization) and represent TSC in the community (blogs, talks, forums).

Data & Personalization

• Partner with product, marketing, and data teams to operationalize personalization—from data ingestion and identity resolution through ML‑driven recommendations and measurement.
• Champion data excellence by design: quality, lineage, governance, privacy, and responsible AI.

Delivery Excellence

• Own outcomes for reliability, scalability, performance, and security across digital platforms; embed SLOs/SLA, error budgets, and blameless postmortems.
• Mature DevSecOps and CI/CD to enable frequent, low‑risk releases and automated quality gates.

Partner Ecosystem Leadership

• Lead work across a blended team of TSC engineers and strategic partners / SIs; set expectations, scorecards, and joint velocity/quality objectives; hold partners to outcome‑based SLAs.

Security & Compliance by Design

• Embed security and privacy throughout the SDLC (threat modeling, secure coding, SAST/DAST, SBOM, dependency risk, secrets management). Partner with Infosec to meet standards without slowing flow.

People Leadership & Culture

• Hire, coach, and grow engineering leaders and individual contributors; nurture innovative culture, craftsmanship, and accountability.
• Promote inclusive practices and diverse perspectives in decision‑making and career development.

Stakeholder Partnership & Communication

• Collaborate closely with Product, Digital Operations, Marketing, Enterprise Systems, and other functions, to align roadmaps and investment choices. Translate complex tech into crisp narratives for executive and non‑technical audiences.

12‑Month Outcomes

• Modernize engineering system: 3× deployment frequency, 30% reduction in lead time for change, and >20% reduction in change‑failure rate; SOC2/PCI guardrails automated in pipelines.
• Reliability: Establish platform SLOs; improve mobile/web crash‑free sessions to industry‑leading benchmarks.
• Personalization: Launch at least two ML‑powered personalization features with demonstrable lift in conversion/AOV or guest retention.
• Tech Radar: Publish and socialize a TSC technology radar; retire 2–3 legacy tools/services; adopt 1–2 strategically relevant new capabilities (e.g., experimentation, observability, gen‑AI assisted development).
• Talent & Culture: Build succession for key roles; create an engineering career framework and learning paths (e.g., AI/LLM upskilling).

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES (Detailed)

• Strategy & Architecture: Own engineering strategy, North Star architecture, and platform roadmaps across guest‑facing and in‑cafe systems; ensure coherence across mobile, web, kiosk, POS, KDS, loyalty, marketing tech, data, and analytics.
• Platform Engineering & DevEx: Build platform capabilities (CI/CD, testing frameworks, IaC, observability, developer portals) that accelerate safe delivery.
• AI/LLM Enablement: Advance practical adoption of AI/LLM in developer productivity (code/gen tests), operations (AIOps), and product features (recommendations, search, content). Align with TSC’s AI‑first direction.
• Data & Analytics: Lead the evolution of the data platform (pipelines, governance, privacy), enable experimentation/metrics, and productize personalization use cases end‑to‑end.
• Quality & Reliability: Institutionalize test automation (unit/integration/E2E/API), non‑functional testing, chaos/DR drills, and SRE practices.
• Security & Risk: Drive secure SDLC, vulnerability management, and compliance alignment in collaboration with Infosec leadership.
• Vendor/Partner Management: Direct outcomes with strategic partners; enforce engineering standards, delivery health, and continuous improvement with SOW/MSA alignment.
• Budget & Portfolio: Shape multi‑year investment cases and quarterly planning; balance build/buy/vendor; manage budgets and capacity to maximize ROI.
• Communication: Provide transparent updates on progress, risk, and trade‑offs to executives and stakeholders.

QUALIFICATIONS Required:

• 10+ years in software/platform engineering with 5+ leading multi‑disciplinary engineering groups (app dev, platform/DevSecOps/SRE, QA/automation, data/ML).
• Demonstrated vision for maturing engineering practices (e.g., platform engineering, trunk‑based development, CI/CD, SRE, SDLC governance) and a track record of looking around the corner at industry evolution.
• Curiosity & research mindset: habitually explores emerging tech; translates insights into pragmatic pilots and scaled adoption.
• Proven innovation leadership across products/practices/process/technology; measurable improvements to reliability, speed, quality, or cost.
• Thought leadership in at least one contemporary domain (e.g., AI/LLM, platform engineering, cloud‑native, privacy‑preserving data, edge computing)—with public artifacts or internal evangelism to show impact.
• Experience enabling data & personalization (data pipelines, governance, model lifecycle, experimentation, guest 360).
• Strong partner ecosystem leadership (systems integrators/MSPs), outcome‑based SOW governance, and cross‑functional influence.
• Excellent communication with executives and non‑technical stakeholders; evidence of building inclusive, high‑trust cultures.

Preferred:

• Background integrating restaurant/retail technology stacks (POS, KDS, kiosk, loyalty, e‑commerce), or similar multi‑site, transaction‑heavy environments. Experience in QSR/retail is a plus, not a must.

Education

• BS/MS in Computer Science or related field—or equivalent experience.

WAYS OF WORKING

• Product‑led & outcome‑oriented: define success with measurable KPIs.
• Security & privacy by design: built‑in, automated, auditable.
• Platform mindset: pave golden paths; reduce cognitive load for teams.[GI1]
• Evidence‑based decisions: experiment, measure, iterate.
• Learn‑it‑all culture: continuous learning, internal tech talks, mentorship.
• Platform mindset; pave golden paths; reduce cognitive load.