Director, Software Engineering

Remote from: USA
Annual salary: Undisclosed
Salary information is not provided for this position. Check our Salary Directory to estimate the average compensation for similar roles.
Department: Software Engineering
Employment type: Full Time,
Job posted: 7 Jun 2026
Apply before: 7 Jul 2026
Experience level: Director
Views / Applies: 18 / 4

Pioneering health and wealth solutions as a privately owned leader.

Financial Services
2000

AI Summary

First Dollar is seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead platform development teams, driving the full software development lifecycle for consumer-facing digital health products. This role involves strategic technical direction, collaboration with product and design leaders, and fostering a culture of innovation with AI tools. The ideal candidate has extensive experience in both front-end and back-end technologies, agile methodologies, and team leadership. They will oversee code quality, architecture decisions, and ensure high-performance delivery while empowering engineers. This position offers an opportunity to shape a smart health benefits platform in a dynamic, human-centric environment.

Role DNA

Job Complexity

Easy Hard

Pace & Pressure

Relaxed Fast-paced

Autonomy Level

Guided Full Ownership

Communication Load

Independent Highly Collaborative

AI Insight This director role demands deep technical expertise, strategic planning, and cross-functional leadership, making it highly challenging but not the hardest due to the support structure.

Salary Analysis

AI Insight The salary is not provided, but for a Director of Software Engineering in the US, the market range is typically $150k-$300k, with a median around $200k. This role likely offers competitive compensation commensurate with experience and the company's focus on AI-driven innovation.

Key Skills

Leadership Software Architecture Agile Full Stack Development AI Integration Team Management API Design Cloud Computing DevOps Cross-functional Collaboration

Cover Letter Sample

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am excited to apply for the Director of Software Engineering position at First Dollar. With over a decade of experience leading engineering teams and delivering scalable, consumer-facing products, I am confident in my ability to drive your platform's evolution. My background includes full-stack development, agile methodologies, and strategic alignment with product and design leaders.

I have successfully led teams to build high-quality APIs and web applications, fostering a culture of ownership and continuous improvement. I am particularly drawn to First Dollar's human-centric approach and responsible use of AI, which aligns with my belief that technology should amplify human expertise. I have leveraged AI tools to accelerate development while maintaining rigorous code standards.

I am eager to bring my technical leadership, collaborative spirit, and passion for innovation to First Dollar. Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to discussing how I can contribute to your mission.

Possible Interview Questions

Can you describe a time when you set the technical direction for a team and how you ensured alignment with business goals?

In my previous role, I led the migration of a monolithic application to a microservices architecture. I collaborated with product managers to map business capabilities, created a phased roadmap, and communicated the vision to the team. By involving engineers in design decisions and setting clear milestones, we achieved a 40% improvement in deployment frequency while meeting all business objectives.

How do you foster a culture of code quality and accountability in engineering teams?

I establish clear coding standards, implement automated testing and code review processes, and encourage pair programming. I also hold regular retrospectives to identify improvements. For example, I introduced a 'code ownership' model where each team member is responsible for specific modules, which increased accountability and reduced bugs by 30%.

How have you integrated AI tools into your development workflow, and what guardrails do you put in place?

I use AI for code generation, testing, and documentation, but require all AI-generated code to be reviewed and understood by human engineers. I set guidelines that AI should not replace critical thinking, and we maintain a strict policy that developers must be able to explain every line of code. This ensures quality and prevents over-reliance.

Describe your experience leading cross-functional teams with product and design leaders. How do you handle conflicting priorities?

I regularly participate in joint planning sessions and use a prioritization framework like RICE. When conflicts arise, I facilitate data-driven discussions focusing on user impact and business value. For instance, I balanced feature requests with tech debt by quantifying the long-term cost of delays, gaining buy-in from stakeholders.

How do you mentor and develop senior engineers into leaders?

I identify high-potential engineers and give them ownership of small projects, paired with coaching on delegation and decision-making. I also create opportunities for them to present technical proposals and lead retrospectives. One engineer I mentored became a tech lead within a year, successfully managing a team of five.

Position Summary:

We are seeking a Platform Software Engineering Director to join our growing team. This role is responsible for the full software development life cycle, from conception to deployment. As a Platform Software Engineering Director, you will have relevant experience with both front-end and back-end coding languages, software development architecture and design patterns, development frameworks and third-party libraries. The ideal candidate will have a strong background leading teams developing consumer-facing digital products in collaboration with product and design leaders. This individual must be creative, client focused, team player, organized, and can thrive in a dynamic environment.

At First Dollar, we believe in empowering engineers to build a smarter health benefits platform – one where human expertise is amplified, not replaced, by AI tools. We seek engineers who have demonstrated experience using AI responsibly to accelerate their development workflow, improve code quality, and solve complex problems more efficiently.

Our engineering team is built on the principles of humans over code. We are a tight-knit group of lifelong learners in a constant quest to be a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. Come join us!

Duties & Responsibilities:

As a member of the Research and Development / Product Leadership team, will provide design services, resource planning, work estimation and coordination for multiple delivery teams

Lead a team of software engineers and quality engineers to design, develop, and test applications (e.g. API, web apps) in accordance with established standards.

Collaborate with Product and Design Leaders to lead product delivery teams.

Set short to medium term technical direction, creating plans to help achieve goals

Participate in peer-reviews of solution designs and related code.

Package and support deployment of releases.

Foster an environment where different backgrounds, cultures, industry and life experiences are embraced and valued.

Collaborate on architecture decisions, ensuring that we are adapting and evolving to meet organization’s scaling business needs

Collaborate with other software developers, product managers and software architects to plan, design and deliver applications.

Assess opportunities for application and process improvement and prepare documentation of rationale to share with team members and other affected parties.

Adhere to high-quality development principles while delivering solutions on time and within budget.

Ensure that non-functional requirements such as security, performance, maintainability, scalability, usability, and reliability are being considered when architecting solutions.

Work in an Agile framework to identify and automate solutions that result in enhanced developer experience and increased developer productivity.

Stay abreast of emerging technologies, industry trends, and best practices in solution architecture and technology innovation.

Contribute towards defining and establishing benchmarks, metrics, and quality measures.

Leverage AI as a tool, not a replacement – Candidates are expected to understand that AI is a power productivity multiplier while maintaining engineering judgment, and ensuring AI generated code meets quality standards

Full code ownership mandatory – Must understand, explain, and support all AI-assisted code as if written from scratch

Troubleshoot, debug and upgrade software

Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Provide direction, guidance, and support to a team of employees. Set clear expectations, delegate tasks, and ensure effective communication within the team.

Evaluate employee performance, provide feedback, and conduct performance reviews. Identify areas for development and create plans to enhance team members’ skills.

Uniformly identify high performers who consistently produce quality work.

Remove barriers for the team, ensuring team members have all the tools, resources, and context to execute.

Active coaching of the team and developing individual development plans for all team members.

Overcome challenges and conflicts that arise within the team or projects.

Make decisions that balance various factors and contribute to the overall success of the organization.

Cultivate relationships with clients, partners, and other departments to facilitate collaboration and achieve common goals.

Recruits, interviews, hires, and trains new team members.

Qualifications

Education & Experience:

10 or more years of experience in software or solution architecture roles, with a focus on designing and implementing complex, enterprise-level solutions using cloud platform.