Director, Engineering
Campfire
San Francisco, CA · $250k–$350k a year · Posted September 18, 2026
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Where San Francisco, CA ranks
Where San Francisco, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Best cities for security jobs316 openings · of 20
- #1Best cities for technology jobs7,178 openings · of 100
- #1Best cities for financial services pay after cost of living$173k · of 33
- #1Best cities for entry-level jobs that want AI skills35% · of 100
- #1Best cities for entry-level jobs that want AI skills in the West Coast35% · of 54
- #1Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the West Coast902 jobs · of 47
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
How AI is used in this kind of work
AI use among architectural and engineering managers is little observed so far. Measured exposure for architectural and engineering managers: 3% (little observed).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
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About the job
Campfire is building the AI-native ERP for modern finance teams, backed by a $65M Series B from Accel and Ribbit Capital. Our engineering org is ~30 people today and growing to ~100, and we're hiring Directors of Engineering to lead that scale-up. Each Director owns a segment of the org — roughly 25–40 engineers across 3–5 teams — and will report to the CTO alongside two peer Directors. This is a manager-of-managers role: you'll hire and develop engineering managers, shape team structure within your area, and own how your teams plan, ship, and operate.
Responsibilities
- Own the org design for your area: team boundaries, charters, and staffing plans
- Lead, coach, and hold accountable 3–5 engineering managers; develop first-time managers and grow future leaders from the IC ranks
- Drive hiring for your teams: headcount planning, recruiting, interviewer training, and closing senior candidates
- Run planning and delivery for your area: roadmap alignment with product, quarterly commitments, and predictable execution across teams
- Uphold operational rigor expected of a financial-systems company: on-call, incident response, SLOs, and release practices that hold up to enterprise and audit scrutiny
- Partner with peer Directors, security, and compliance on cross-cutting concerns — shared platform, SOC 2, enterprise security reviews, AI governance
- Set and uphold engineering standards — code review, testing, observability, architecture decisions — across a Python/Django, PostgreSQL, Next.js, and AWS stack
Qualifications
- 10+ years in software engineering, including 5+ years managing engineers and 2+ years managing managers
- Led a group of 20+ engineers with multiple managers reporting to you, through a period of rapid growth
- Built or operated systems where correctness and auditability are non-negotiable: fintech, accounting, payments, or ERP
- Technically credible with senior ICs — able to review architecture and weigh in on data-model and infrastructure decisions
- Comfortable operating as one of several peer leaders: collaborative, low-ego, and effective at working across org boundaries
- Hands-on interest in running LLMs and agents in production
- Clear, direct communicator who writes well and gives hard feedback kindly
Bonus
- Experience taking a product through enterprise security and compliance (SOC 2, SSO/SAML, vendor reviews)
- Familiarity with revenue recognition, GAAP close, or accounting integrations (Stripe, Deel, Rippling, banks, payroll)
- Experience with MCP or building integrations for AI platforms
- Depth in Python and relational databases