Director, Engineering Operations & Strategy

Seattle, Washington, United States

The real world is the next frontier, and at Metropolis, we are creating the artificial intelligence to make it responsive. We are pioneering the Recognition Economy - a future where mundane repetition disappears and being known unlocks access, comfort, and belonging everywhere you go. From transforming parking into a seamless drive-in, drive-out experience for millions of Members to expanding our intelligence layer across retail and hospitality, we are building a world that feels instinctive and magical.

The future isn't coming; it's here, and we need builders, innovators, and problem solvers to help us create it.

Metropolis is seeking a Director, Engineering Operations & Strategy to own technology strategy, operational leadership, and strategic problem-solving across our engineering organization. In this role, you will lead with high autonomy, managing a multi-million dollar engineering budget, cutting through deeply complex problems, exhibiting exceptional leadership without authority, and defining simple, scalable solutions to challenging problems at a hyper growth company. You will partner directly with senior leadership to execute M&A due diligence, streamline shared technical processes, and navigate high-stakes operational challenges.

The ideal candidate thrives in uncertainty, takes full ownership of outcomes, and brings a unique blend of hands-on technical grounding and high-intensity strategic experience.

• Own shared processes across the engineering department, including hiring workflows, onboarding, and training, to keep practices consistent as the org scales.
• Cut through deeply complex, multifaceted operational challenges to deliver simple, actionable solutions without waiting for top-down instruction
• Direct and manage a $50M a $100million+ P&L budget, coordinating resources to align with high-level corporate objectives
• Own hardware and service forecasting for critical vendors (AWS, Twilio, and similar), maintaining ongoing visibility into spend trends and flagging risks or opportunities before they become urgent.
• Own emerging strategic decisions for the engineering organization - M&A due diligence, major vendor migrations, and similar high-stakes calls - in close partnership with senior executives.
• Build alignment at the highest levels of leadership, navigating the nuances of multi-stakeholder decisions on multifaceted or high-risk initiatives
• Keep teams unblocked and moving forward rapidly, demonstrating comfort acting with incomplete information as long as directionally correct
• Leverage curiosity and formal methodologies to break down cross-functional silos, challenge status-quo assumptions, and drive cross-team alignment
• Forecast operational trends and deliver strategic recommendations that favor proactive disruption over routine maintenance
• Own all vendor management across the engineering organization, from contract negotiation and renewals to performance accountability and day-to-day vendor relationships.

• 6+ years in high-intensity, rigorous environments 2+ years of hands-on working engineering experience in software or similar engineering roles
• A demonstrated history of working relentlessly to get hard things done: someone who runs through walls rather than around them. This intensity often comes from backgrounds like top-tier management consulting, investment banking, or strategic finance, but we care about the trait itself, not the pedigree: what matters is a track record of outworking a problem because you genuinely care about the outcome.
• Proven experience leading a strategic function with significant autonomy, managing resources, and taking full ownership of organizational outcomes
• Exceptional ability to build trust with technical teams and influence without authority
• Experience owning meaningful budget or resource decisions within a high-growth or complex organization, with a bias toward action over waiting for perfect information.
• Track record of operating effectively in fast-moving, high-ambiguity environments, making sound decisions without complete data
• Exceptional ability to synthesize complex operational or technical concepts into clear rationale for senior and C-level stakeholders
• Skilled at translating high-level business goals into concrete plans of execution that account for broad organizational impact
• Proven excellence at leveraging AI tools and frameworks to optimize…