Director of Engineering - Brazil

Space Inch is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead our engineering function within a long-standing partnership with one of the largest investment managers in the U.S. Partnering closely with our CTO, you'll be the most senior engineering leader on the account: owning day-to-day operational and people leadership, serving as the senior engineering point of contact for the client's stakeholders, and driving AI adoption across the team. This client operates in a highly regulated environment with work spanning many technical stacks, so we want someone who thrives in that variety and brings real operational excellence and care for engineers to an agency environment.

This is first and foremost a people-leadership and communication role . We're looking for an exceptional communicator who earns the trust of engineers and senior client stakeholders alike . You must come from an engineering background , current or former, but hands-on technical depth isn't the primary requirement.

We're also still building out this account's leadership structure, so there's no layer of Engineering Managers under this role yet. You'll lead individual contributors and team leads directly and stay hands-on with delivery yourself, at least for now, with the opportunity to develop engineers on your team into Engineering Managers over time.
Our Mission, Vision, and Values

At Space Inch , we prioritize alignment with our clients and team, ensuring a deep understanding of their needs. We are committed to delivering exceptional work while supporting the personal and professional growth of our team members.
Working at Space Inch

- Our remote-first team of around 80+ people is based across the EU (mostly Croatia), the US, and Latin America, with a growing presence in Brazil.

- Occasional travel for client visits and company retreats.

- This role is embedded within a single long-standing client partnership, though you'll draw on Space Inch 's broader engineering community and practices.

- We support work/life balance for our team.

Requirements

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10+ years in software development, with at least 5+ leading engineering teams , including technical delivery leadership (ideally in an agency, consultancy, or client-embedded environment). Distributed team experience is a plus.

- Exceptional communicator and mediator who bridges client demands with team reality, builds real trust with engineers, and handles sensitive topics (compensation, retention, disengagement, underperformance) directly and with care. Strong across written, async, live, and cross-cultural communication

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Proactive problem solver who spots delivery, scope, budget, and process breakdowns early (from PTO coverage gaps to missing test data) and fixes them without waiting for permission

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Hands-on, demonstrable fluency with AI as a working tool : You've personally driven AI adoption in an engineering team with measurable outcomes (tooling rolled out, productivity gains, initiatives delivered); your credibility comes from execution, not commentary

- Enough technical fluency across modern architecture, SDLC, and common stacks (e.g., React, Vue, Angular, Node.js, Python, Java, C#) to challenge assumptions, guide decisions, and turn vague client requests into execution plans alongside tech leads. You don't need to write production code

- Experience coordinating multiple teams or workstreams in parallel, with strong stakeholder management on ambiguous or contentious topics, plus staffing, onboarding, interviewing, and resource planning

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Strong commercial sensibility : translating technical work, operational fixes, and AI-driven gains into a value story clients understand and continue to invest in

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A systems thinker : organized enough to hold many threads, decisive enough to act without waiting for permission, self-aware enough to loop in leadership after. Experience with internal developer platforms, MCP-style tooling, or prototype-to-production workflows is a plus

Key Respo