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Chalk is a data platform company that powers machine learning applications, combining high-performance Rust infrastructure with developer-friendly tools. The company recently raised a $50M Series A led by Felicis and serves leading companies in fraud prevention, identity verification, and clean energy optimization.
As Director of Engineering for the New York office, you will serve as the engineering site lead reporting directly to the founders. You'll own all NYC engineering operations and will initially manage individual contributor engineers and tech leads. As the site scales, you'll build out a management layer by hiring and developing engineering managers beneath you, establishing the organizational structure and leadership pipeline from the ground up.
Key responsibilities include:
- Serve as engineering site lead with full ownership of NYC engineering
- Directly manage engineers building Chalk's data platform and hire/develop engineering managers
- Partner with founders on technical strategy and long-term product/platform roadmap
- Design organizational structure, hiring plans, and leadership pipeline for rapid scaling
- Establish engineering processes and operating rhythms balancing velocity and quality
- Work with customers and executives to understand requirements and ensure platform-market fit
- Define and champion Chalk's engineering culture in New York, setting hiring and retention standards
Required qualifications:
- 10+ years of engineering experience with 5+ years of engineering management
- Experience managing managers or clear readiness to build multi-layer organizations
- Early-stage startup experience
- Production ML systems or data infrastructure experience
- Strong programming skills and systems thinking
- Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain strong engineers and leaders
- Executive-level communication bridging technical, business, and customer contexts
- Track record delivering complex, high-stakes projects and scaling teams
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus experience includes site lead/founding leader roles, Rust or distributed systems expertise, query planner/compiler knowledge, data infrastructure or PaaS implementation, and scaling engineering organizations from single-digit to multi-team in high-growth environments.
The role is in-office 5 days per week with flexibility for unavoidable conflicts. This is not a hybrid position.
