Director of Engineering - Distribution

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Director of Engineering - Distribution based in United States.

This role offers the opportunity to lead the engineering vision for a critical platform area that connects businesses with customers across the global travel ecosystem.
You will shape the technical strategy behind distribution products, integrations, APIs, and customer-facing experiences.
As an engineering leader, you will guide teams responsible for building scalable, reliable, and high-performing systems.
The position combines architecture ownership, operational excellence, product partnership, and people leadership.
You will help modernize complex platforms while enabling faster innovation and stronger partner adoption.
This is a high-impact opportunity for an experienced engineering leader passionate about building technology that powers global experiences.

The Director of Engineering - Distribution will lead the technical direction, execution, and growth of a broad engineering organization responsible for critical distribution capabilities. This role requires strategic thinking, strong operational leadership, and the ability to build high-performing teams while delivering scalable technology solutions.

• Own the technical strategy and architecture for distribution platforms, including partner integrations, affiliate systems, external APIs, content services, and customer-facing booking experiences.
• Design scalable, loosely coupled systems that enable rapid innovation while protecting core platforms and ensuring long-term maintainability.
• Lead engineering execution across multiple technically diverse systems, balancing immediate business priorities with sustainable architecture decisions.
• Establish and improve reliability practices, including SLOs, SLIs, runbooks, observability, monitoring, and incident response processes.
• Build dashboards and operational insights that improve visibility into partner performance, adoption, and system health.
• Collaborate closely with product, commercial, and business teams to translate strategic goals into technical roadmaps and delivery plans.
• Build, mentor, and scale high-performing engineering teams by developing managers, establishing best practices, and fostering accountability.
• Recruit and retain exceptional engineering talent while creating an environment focused on collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Encourage responsible adoption of AI-powered tools and modern engineering practices to improve team productivity and effectiveness.
• Drive platform modernization initiatives, including evolving legacy systems into scalable and maintainable architectures.

Requirements:

The ideal candidate is an experienced engineering leader with a strong background in distributed systems, platform development, and organizational leadership. They should have demonstrated success managing complex technical environments while balancing business growth, reliability, and engineering excellence.

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with at least 4 years leading engineering managers or large cross-functional engineering teams.
• Proven experience designing, building, and scaling distributed systems, customer-facing platforms, integrations, or complex technology ecosystems.
• Strong operational expertise, including SRE practices, observability, incident management, reliability improvements, and system health ownership.
• Experience defining technical strategy, architecture direction, and engineering roadmaps aligned with business objectives.
• Strong people leadership skills with experience hiring, coaching managers, developing teams, and creating a culture of accountability.
• Ability to balance rapid delivery and business growth requirements with long-term architecture, maintainability, and technical debt management.
• Experience modernizing legacy platforms, including migrating or evolving monolithic systems with minimal business disruption.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working with travel platforms, marketplaces, eCommerce systems, or large external partner integrations is a plus.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary range of $186,880–$280,319 USD, plus potential 25% annual bonus.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer matching.
• 26 vacation days, 10 sick days, and 12 paid holidays annually.
• 22 weeks of paid parental leave and 2 weeks of paid grandparent leave.
• Extended care and bereavement leave benefits.
• Life insurance coverage.
• Global leave benefits supporting employees worldwide.
• Wellness benefits, including Headspace subscription and wellness programs.
• Work-from-home assistance and hybrid-friendly work options.
• Educational and professional development opportunities.
• Paid volunteer hours and community engagement initiatives.
• Team-building activities, social events, and a collaborative global culture.
• Opportunity to lead technology initiatives that impact thousands of businesses and millions of customers worldwide.