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Nightfall AI is an AI-native, unified data loss prevention and insider risk management platform protecting sensitive data across SaaS apps, GenAI tools, email, endpoint devices, and more. The company serves hundreds of customers from AI innovators to top-10 banks, backed by leading VCs including Bain Capital Ventures, Venrock, and WestBridge Capital, with notable advisors including the founders of Okta and Mandiant.
You will own the engineering organization end-to-end, leading a distributed team split between the Bay Area (Palo Alto) and Bangalore. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has grown through engineering ranks—a builder who can still engage deeply on hard technical problems while running the organization.
Key responsibilities include:
- Lead and scale the distributed engineering org, building systems and trust to operate as one cohesive team across continents
- Design and deliver high-quality software solutions aligned with business requirements
- Develop and implement engineering processes and standards ensuring consistency and quality
- Collaborate with the CEO and senior leaders to define and execute technology strategy
- Manage resources to ensure on-time, on-budget project delivery
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship, staying hands-on enough to review architecture decisions and unblock hard problems
- Build and maintain a strong engineering culture fostering innovation across US and India teams
- Stay current with emerging trends and recommend new tools and methodologies
- Work closely with Product to define roadmaps and align engineering resources
- Champion secure software development lifecycle practices, integrating security from design to deployment
- Advocate for secure coding standards and design principles (least privilege, defense in depth, zero trust)
- Ensure sensitive data is handled securely via encryption, tokenization, and data masking
- Lead engineering response during security incidents with timely containment and resolution
- Drive root cause analysis and implement lessons learned to prevent recurrence
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field (Master's or Ph.D. preferred)
- At least 8 years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a leadership role
- Track record of growing from hands-on technical role into engineering leadership (built the org, not inherited it)
- Experience joining a B2B SaaS company at early stage (founding engineer or first engineering hires) and growing through significant scale—ideally 5+ years at one company, progressing from IC through senior leadership
- Proven track record delivering high-quality software on time and within budget
- Strong technical skills in software development, architecture, and design
- Experience managing and mentoring large engineering teams, including demonstrated experience building or partnering with India-based engineering teams
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and senior leaders
- Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills
- Startup experience strongly preferred; comfortable in lean, fast-moving Series B environment
- Background in security, infrastructure, or data-intensive systems; direct security engineering experience (data protection, authentication, auditing, threat detection) is a strong plus
- Based in Bay Area with hybrid work rhythm
Nice to have: cybersecurity or data security SaaS experience, data infrastructure or large-scale data processing systems experience, track record shipping AI/ML-powered features in production.
