Director of Product Engineering

At Konfío, we are seeking a Director of Engineering, a dynamic blend of strategic leader and technical maven, with a penchant for customer-focused solutions. This individual should bring a wealth of experience from the financial services industry, combined with the technical acumen to harness the power of AI for optimal developer productivity.

The Director of Engineering is an experienced engineering leader prepared to grapple with a range of financial services domains, leveraging Mobile, Web and Cloud technologies, in a value delivery-oriented approach. The Director of Engineering embodies architectural thinking for the long run, while balancing decisions for steady and continual shipping of products and services, is adept at tackling complex problems by going deep and engaging team members, while upholding stringent quality and security standards. The Director of Engineering takes ownership of and is accountable for the complete product engineering milieu, spanning outputs such as people, process, budget, deliverables, and the operations of all projects helmed by the team. This leadership has a strong influence on the people they manage, the coaching intricacies of their squad, and spearheading of innovative, agile and project management practices. The Director of Engineering is also entrusted with the stewardship of key performance indicators and other deliverable aspects. In essence, the Director of Engineering is the undisputed captain of their teams, steering the ship with unwavering dedication and vision.

Beside key product feature developments, this position will lead the execution of the following technology projects:

Modularization:

Separate current mono-repo application layers and introduce new solutions which aim higher scalability, security, resiliency and productivity of the team.

Migrations:

Work closely with Cloud, Cybersecurity, Platform and Resilience teams to build architecture transitions to a desired future state in a multi-region and multi-zone model. As well work with

Data teams on the migration of database technologies and introduction of new ones. Consolidate an event-based platform for different use cases.

Modernizations:

Transform legacy applications to the best fit and AI enabled software development processes on top of Gitlab and AWS Services to a vanguard state.

Bankalization:

Detailed design and documentation for bank implementations and integrations with vendor providers in a middleware strategy decoupling strategy, while designing with data teams a comprehensive set of data integrations, ingestions, and reporting for financial and regulatory compliance.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership:

• Lead the delivery execution of product engineering teams, aligning with prioritized business goals and leveraging Program Management, Architecture, and Platform Foundations solutions.
• Play a pivotal role in Konfío’s organizational transformation, both in terms of model and culture.
• Be an integral member of the leadership team, helping shape our engineering and technology maturity, scale the team, and contribute to our architecture strategy.
• Engage in proactive discussions, making decisions anchored in business, financial, agile, and technical principles, influencing both strategic, tactical and operational directions.

Team Management and Development:

• Lead and manage diverse teams comprising front-end web and mobile, and back-end engineers.
• Drive teams toward an ownership-centric culture, emphasizing high-quality and secure delivery.
• Oversee KPIs, team operations, people management, career planning, performance reviews, and coaching.
• Improve team productivity by analyzing productivity reports and implementing effective improvement strategies with team involvement.
• Ensure timely and high-quality delivery, reporting status to leadership through well-maintained JIRA dashboards.
• Foster a collaborative culture within teams and across the broader organization.
• Hire and retain top engineering talent, nurturing a high-performance ethos.

Operational Excellence:

• Own the team's delivery plans and their execution.
• Work collaboratively with business and operations stakeholders, including Product Managers and Designers, to deliver software using a service-oriented architecture.
• Mitigate impediments to team execution, including cross-team challenges, escalating them appropriately.
• Deliver accurate engineering estimates and commit to sound delivery plans.
• Assume responsibility for application architecture, security, quality, and operations of the software delivered.
• Implement process enhancements, championing their adoption within the team.
• Align product engineering deliveries across Engineering Managers and Tech Leads, especially when interdependencies exist with other areas.
• Accountable for assessing, addressing, and mitigate security vulnerabilities within the engineering framework and products.
• Communicate delivery plans and constraints effectively to non-technical stakeholders.

Technical Leadership:

• Facilitates the transition to higher engineering standards, such as coding protocols, TDD/BDD practices, frameworks, and processes like design reviews, code reviews, and service operations.
• Identifies and addresses inefficiencies in delivery projects.
• Propels the pace of innovation by refining our optimization approach.
• Sets benchmarks for operational awareness, guiding teams to end-to-end ownership of their services.
• Finding and implementing ways to improve cost-efficiency.
• Prioritizes and addresses technical debt, ensuring alignment with Architecture, Engineering, Data and Technology standards.
• Advocates best practices, championing their implementation within the team.
• Facilitates team meetings, leading workshops, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
• Drives technical hiring processes to support the scaling of the team.
• Represents Konfío in the industry, engaging with the Engineering communities and forums to promote what Konfío stands for.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in technology, computer science, or related fields.

• Master Business Administration degree.

• Demonstrated experience in developing products/services in the financial industry.

• Strong domain knowledge of AWS and GCP cloud providers, including AWS Fargate, Lambda, ElastiCache, RDS Aurora, DynamoDB, S3 services.

• Proficiency in Native Mobile Development (iOS and Android) and Web Development using React.js, Python, Node.js.

• Familiarity with Monorepo and Polyrepo software architecture.

• Experience in DevSecOps culture through complex and sophisticated CI/CD pipelines.

• Demonstrated comprehension designing reliable solutions based on Service-Oriented Architectures, Microservices architectures (event-driven architectures).

• Understanding designing API Styles, including REST, GraphQL, WebHook.

• Proven leadership skills with a track record of driving teams to exceed goals.

• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Experience with integrations involving multiple SaaS providers.

The following competencies are paramount:

• Strategic thinking and vision
• Action-Oriented Mindset
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Adaptability and resilience
• Decision-making under pressure
• Initiative and proactiveness
• Unit of economics mindfulness
• Fluency in English and Spanish

Nice to have

• Experience leveraging AI for product engineering productivity gains.

• Background in the payments industry.

• Prior experience working in the Fintech environment, with a bonus for those who've been a part of the Mexican Fintech landscape.

• Multilingual abilities, particularly English and Spanish fluency.

Conclusion

Joining Konfío as a Director of Product Engineering offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of fintech and banking technology. You will lead critical transformation projects, driving innovation and excellence in our technology practices. If you are passionate about leveraging technology to create impactful financial solutions, we invite you to apply and contribute to our mission of transforming the fintech landscape.