Director, Engineering

About Blackhawk Network

Today, through BHN’s single global platform, businesses of all kinds can tap into the world’s largest network of branded payment solutions. BHN helps businesses grow revenue, increase loyalty, motivate and reward their teams, disburse funds and engage consumers. Branded payment solutions include the issuance and distribution of gift cards, e‑gifts, corporate payouts and rewards, along with the technology to deliver these products in seamless, integrated ways.

BHN’s network spans the globe with more than 400,000 consumer touchpoints. Learn more at

At Blackhawk Network, you’ll enjoy the best of both worlds—focused remote work plus in-person collaboration on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, our regular in‑office days at our Pleasanton headquarters. This rhythm gives you the tools, connection, and autonomy you need to make a real impact.

We're seeking a Director, Engineering for our Pleasanton, CA or Coppell, TX office to design and implement platform solutions that power seamless recipient experiences across our global network. You'll work from concept through production, partnering closely with Product Managers and other Engineers. You will build robust systems that enable millions of users to engage with our digital ecosystem.

Note:

This is a hybrid role, with two days a week in our Pleasanton, CA or Coppell, TX office.

• Lead and develop a team of engineers through a Senior Engineering Manager and direct reports, setting clear expectations, fostering growth, and building a culture of accountability and collaboration.
• Partner closely with your peer Engineering Leaders (Mobile, Web), Lead Engineers, Product Management, and Technical Program Managers to align roadmaps and deliver cross‑functional outcomes.
• Champion talent development — hiring, mentoring, performance management, and succession planning across your organization.
• Serve as a visible technical leader within BHN's broader Product & Technology organization, contributing to architecture forums, cross‑team initiatives, and engineering culture.

• Help steer the technical direction for large‑scale distributed backend systems
• Drive platform modernization — evolving from monolithic or legacy patterns toward API‑first, cloud‑native architectures on AWS.
• Establish and enforce engineering best practices: API design standards, code quality, CI/CD pipelines, observability, incident response, and post‑mortem culture.
• Accountable for platform reliability, scalability, performance, and security across production systems that process high transaction volumes.

• Ensure all platform solutions meet PCI‑DSS, enterprise security, and regulatory requirements including tokenization, sandboxed architectures, and access controls.
• Partner with Payments+, Fraud/Risk, and Info Sec teams to proactively identify and remediate security and compliance risks.

• Define and track meaningful engineering metrics — velocity, quality, uptime, and team health — and use data to drive continuous improvement.
• Build repeatable processes for onboarding, knowledge management, and operational runbooks that scale with team growth.
• Manage competing priorities effectively in a fast‑paced environment, balancing near‑term delivery with long‑term platform investment.

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles of increasing scope.
• Proven experience managing managers — building and developing teams through other leaders.
• Background in payments, fintech, e‑commerce, or high‑transaction‑volume platforms strongly preferred.
• Track record of delivering large‑scale distributed systems to production with high availability requirements.
• 5+ years working in Agile environments with geographically distributed teams.

• Deep expertise in Java (11+), Spring Boot, and distributed systems design.
• Strong command of API design (REST/Graph
  
  QL), microservices, and event‑driven architecture.
• Cloud‑native development and operations on AWS.
• RDBMS, SQL, data design, and…