Technical Leadership Jobs in Chicago, IL

Engineering Manager: $140k–$190k base, often topped with 10–20% bonus and 0.5–1% equity. Director of Engineering: $190k–$240k base, 15–25% bonus, 1–3% equity. VP/Head of Engineering: $240k–$320k base, 20–30% bonus, 3–7% equity. Adjustments for cost‑of‑living and company size apply; leaders in AI/ML or multi‑cloud sectors may see a 5–10% premium.

Core skills: Kubernetes & container orchestration, Terraform or Pulumi for IaC, GitOps with Flux or ArgoCD, CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, CircleCI), cloud expertise (AWS, Azure, GCP), AI Ops (MLflow, Kubeflow), data platform architecture, security (CISSP, ISO 27001), cost‑optimization, and people management. Certifications that add credibility: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Google Professional Cloud Architect, Certified DevOps Professional, and Scrum Master for cross‑functional leadership.

Approximately 65% of Technical Leadership openings allow full‑time remote work, 20% are hybrid (3–5 days on‑site), and 15% require on‑site presence. Remote roles often demand 24/7 coverage across time zones, so leaders use asynchronous OKR reviews, distributed retrospectives, and tooling like Slack, Zoom, Azure DevOps, and Jira to coordinate squads worldwide.

Typical trajectory: Engineering Manager → Director of Engineering → VP/Head of Engineering → Chief Technology Officer or Chief Architect. Lateral moves include Enterprise Solutions Lead, AI/ML Platform Lead, Technical Advisor, or Consulting roles. Advancement hinges on mastering cross‑functional strategy, earning advanced certifications, publishing technical roadmaps, and demonstrating measurable impact on product velocity and revenue.

Key trends: AI/ML Ops integration for automated model deployment, serverless and Function‑as‑a‑Service for cost‑efficient scaling, multi‑cloud governance tools like Anthos or Terraform Enterprise, AI‑driven observability and predictive monitoring, edge computing for low‑latency services, data mesh and governance frameworks, automated security (SecOps), sustainability metrics for cloud usage, and remote‑first culture with distributed leadership practices. Leaders should adopt Kubernetes‑native ops, implement cost‑monitoring dashboards, and champion DevSecOps to stay competitive.