Freehand Engineering Leader at Freehand to build and lead the US engineering team while owning core product areas. Responsible for technical decisions, product delivery, and team building with AI-first engineering practices.
Responsibilities
You stand up US engineering — charter, hiring, operating rhythm — and act as the CTO's counterpart on the US side, while staying close enough to the work to make the hard technical calls.
You own core product areas end to end, build and ship it yourself, and lead a small, high-caliber team around it.
Either way, this is not a management-only seat. You will own core, revenue-driving product that customers pay for, and you will build with AI every day.
Build Freehand's US engineering team from the ground up: hiring, culture and the quality bar
Own core product areas that customers pay for, from requirements to production
Ship agentic features to some of the world's largest enterprises
Partner with the CTO on technical direction, architecture and the engineering charter
Work directly with customers to understand their problems and turn them into product
Product & Delivery Ownership
Own core, revenue-driving product areas end to end: direction with product, delivery, customer escalations and business metrics
Make fast technical and product decisions with incomplete information, and bring structure to ambiguity
Measure success in revenue, users, cost and latency — with real numbers
Qualification
Core Product OwnershipCareer Trajectory8+ years in engineeringCurrently a DirectorLeadership & BuildingDirector profileSenior EM profileStrong product sense
Required
Core Product Ownership
You can name the customers and quantify what your work moved: revenue, usage, cost or latency
Career Trajectory
8+ years in engineering, with title and scope rising steadily — ideally through promotions within the same company
Currently a Director, Head of Engineering, Senior EM, or Staff-plus TLM, or a Principal at a top-tier company
At least one stint at a startup or early-stage team
You and your team use AI daily in how you build software
Leadership & Building
Director profile: has grown an engineering org from roughly 5 to 30+ people, including hiring managers, and set up its operating system
Senior EM profile: has built multiple 0-to-1 products in startups, at least one in the last 3–4 years, and still codes and designs systems
Strong product sense: you can explain the customer problem, why the product needed to exist, and the bets you made
Thrives in ambiguity and works directly with customers
