The University of Texas at Austin · 1 month ago
Director of Software Engineering, Texas Institute of Electronics
Austin, TX
Full-time
Onsite
Director/Executive
8+ years expThe University of Texas at Austin is seeking a Director of Software Engineering for the Texas Institute for Electronics. This role will lead the architecture and implementation of a scalable AI infrastructure platform, managing a high-caliber engineering team while ensuring performance, security, and reliability.
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Responsibilities
Define and lead the software architecture and implementation roadmap for a scalable, modular AI infrastructure platform. You will work across backend, orchestration, and deployment layers—focusing on performance, security, and reliability
Build and manage a high-caliber engineering team, including backend developers, platform engineers, and site reliability engineers. You will be responsible for mentoring, hiring, and setting a culture of technical excellence and operational discipline
Own core services that power AI pipelines, including APIs for data ingestion and transformation, orchestration of model inference jobs, and integration with LLM orchestration layers and vector stores
Establish technical strategy and design standards that support rapid prototyping, automated testing, and code reuse across teams. You will define best practices and lead by example in system design, code reviews, and architectural discussions
Lead on-premise deployment strategy, ensuring our stack is optimized for hybrid environments. You will manage challenges around air-gapped deployments, resource management, and update rollouts in constrained environments
Collaborate cross-functionally with AI engineering, product management, and customer success to align engineering priorities with product goals. You’ll help translate high-level needs into deliverable milestones
Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines and DevOps best practices, focusing on security, observability, rollback safety, and developer productivity
Develop and enforce SLAs/SLOs for critical services, putting in place monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices that ensure uptime and stability in enterprise-grade deployments
Stay on top of evolving technologies in distributed systems, containerization, service mesh, observability, and developer tooling—bringing in the best ideas to future-proof our platform
Other related functions as assigned
Qualification
Required
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science or a related field; strong systems programming fundamentals
8 or more years of experience in software engineering, with at least 3 years in a technical leadership or management role
Track record of building and deploying distributed backend systems that operate at scale, with a strong emphasis on system reliability and maintainability
Deep experience with containerized environments and orchestration, including Kubernetes, Helm, Docker, and related tooling
Fluency in modern backend programming languages such as Go, Rust, Python, or Java
Hands-on experience managing hybrid or on-prem enterprise software deployments, including troubleshooting networking, storage, and computer issues in real-world installations
Demonstrated ability to lead high-performance engineering teams, with a focus on hiring, mentoring, and cultivating engineering excellence
Strong communication and documentation skills—able to synthesize complex technical topics for a variety of audiences and align stakeholders toward shared goals
Startup mindset. You thrive in ambiguity, adapt quickly, and are comfortable working hands-on across multiple layers of the tech stack
Relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate
Preferred
Master of Science in Computer Science or Engineering
Experience building data-intensive or ML-heavy software products, including APIs for inference, data pipelines, and real-time analytics
Familiarity with API design (REST/gRPC/OpenAPI) and interfacing with AI model serving stacks (e.g., vLLM, Triton, custom TorchServe)
Experience with secure software development and compliance in regulated environments (e.g., SOC2, HIPAA, FedRAMP)
Contributions to open-source projects or strong technical thought leadership in the cloud-native or ML infrastructure communities
Experience building platforms or developer tools used by external customers or partners
Benefits
Competitive health benefits (employee premiums covered at 100%, family premiums at 50%)
Voluntary Vision, Dental, Life, and Disability insurance options
Generous paid vacation, sick time, and holidays
Teachers Retirement System of Texas, a defined benefit retirement plan, with 8.25% employer matching funds
Additional Voluntary Retirement Programs: Tax Sheltered Annuity 403(b) and a Deferred Compensation program 457(b)
Flexible spending account options for medical and childcare expenses
Robust free training access through LinkedIn Learning plus professional conference opportunities
Tuition assistance
Expansive employee discount program including athletic tickets
Free access to UT Austin's libraries and museums with staff ID card
Free rides on all UT Shuttle and Austin CapMetro buses with staff ID card
Company
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest public universities in the United States.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
The University of Texas at Austin has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (282)
2024 (210)
2023 (175)
2022 (186)
2021 (187)
2020 (190)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
unknownKey Investors
Republic Capital Group
2022-09-14Series Unknown
Leadership Team
Will Whiting
Chief Development Officer
Recent News
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