Director Engineering; m​/f​/d

As Director of Engineering (m/f/d), you own the technical strategy and operating model of our data platform and the data engineering organization behind it. The platform is the foundation for everything we do: proprietary equity research, AI-driven analytics, alternative-data ingestion across 15+ vendors at 200+ TB monthly, and the LLM agents and retrieval pipelines our analysts rely on. We are at the point where AI has become infrastructure for our research, and we need an individual to define how the platform, and the organization behind it, scales as a long-term strategic asset.

In this role, you report directly to Carlos Bielsa (Managing Partner & Chief AI Officer). You will further lead and grow a team of 3 senior data engineers. Given the team's size, this is a player-coach role in which you will be highly operational when our roadmap requires it while setting a high bar for the team.

Your priorities will include:

• Scale the petabyte data platform. Own the full lifecycle of our data platform: the lakehouse, orchestration, and processing behind the 200+ TB of monthly alternative data powering BIT's public equity research.
• Lead as a player-coach. Split your time between hands‑on, highest‑impact work and leading 3 senior data engineers: setting standards, reviewing designs and code, hiring as the team grows, and helping each engineer develop in their focus area.
• Architect AI-native engineering standards. Set how AI runs across every engineering function, from agentic coding with Claude Code and Codex to AI code review, automated testing, and security auditing, so output per engineer compounds each quarter.
• Bridge strategy and engineering. Work directly with our Managing Partners, Portfolio Managers, and the investment team, translating high‑level requirements into robust applications.
• Sharpen infrastructure and architecture. Make the infra and architecture choices (Python, SQL, AWS, Databricks, Snowflake) that let RAG and agentic orchestration run reliably at scale.

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with 3-5 years leading data platform teams. You have shaped the org structure, hiring, and review processes that made those teams better over time.
• Several years owning data platforms end-to-end (ingestion, ETLs, delivery, quality) at data‑centric companies operating at terabyte scale. Fin Tech or asset management background is a plus but no requirement.
• Deep Python and SQL with clean engineering and testing practices, across distributed data processing, production APIs, and a major public cloud (AWS strongly preferred). AI is woven into how you build, review, and test.
• You drive AI adoption beyond personal productivity, building team‑level playbooks and standards for tools like Claude Code and Codex across coding, review, and testing.
• Outstanding academic achievements in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or Natural Sciences, paired with exceptional impact in past roles.
• You communicate fluently in English.

• You want to be a purely strategic executive who no longer gets hands‑on. This is a player‑coach role: you ship code and review designs alongside leading the team, and it only rewards someone who still wants to build.
• You treat AI as an occasional aid. We run AI as default infrastructure and want you to set that standard across our industry and firm.
• You are passionate about AI, financial markets, and the technology businesses we invest in.
• Builder with executive judgment. You would rather ship than discuss, and you know when discussion is the right move.
• Player‑coach. You are as strong hands‑on as anyone on your team, with the patience and clarity to lead them.
• You manage for outcomes: engineers own problems end‑to‑end, and you communicate progress, tradeoffs, and risk clearly to engineers, leadership, and the investment team.
• Proactive, entrepreneurial, and comfortable with ambiguity. Intellectually rigorous and honest about gaps.

• Work with petabytes of data and the tools at the frontier of asset management, alongside some of the brightest minds in the European industry.
• A motivated, international team of 15 nationalities meeting in person at our Berlin HQ, with flat hierarchies and direct access to management, senior staff, and investors.
• Define the engineering organization from a real inflection point: data platform, AI‑native culture, and hiring playbook. Your decisions compound for years.
• Day 1 ownership and challenging, varied work for a steep learning curve.
• A senior‑leadership compensation package with a meaningful variable and equity component tied to long‑term performance.