Join our innovative software engineering team at Couchbase as the Sr. Director of Software Engineering for Capella, our advanced DBaaS platform built on AWS, GCP, and Azure. In this role, you will oversee the delivery, operational readiness, and technical alignment of the Capella Control Plane. You will lead multiple engineering teams responsible for building scalable, secure, and highly available cloud services. Your work will directly impact customer satisfaction, platform reliability, and Capella’s ability to scale as a global DBaaS offering.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role, focused on operational execution, strategic alignment, long-term planning, and high-quality software delivery. You will work closely with Engineering, Product, UX, SRE, and Support to translate high-level goals into technical plans and execution. You’ll own SDLC processes, guide architecture, prioritize initiatives, manage technical risk, and develop engineering leaders capable of driving outcomes independently.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and Execute the SDLC: Lead the full development lifecycle across multiple teams, ensuring consistent execution, high code quality, and production reliability.
• Ensure Architectural Alignment: Guide key architecture decisions and review designs to maintain platform scalability and consistency with technical standards.
• Translate Product Requirements: Work with Product to define technical specifications that align with roadmap priorities.
• Prioritize and Sequence Initiatives: Make tradeoffs across strategic and tactical work to focus teams on high-impact outcomes.
• Manage Technical Risk and Debt: Identify long-term risks and technical debt; adjust plans and resourcing to mitigate them.
• Coordinate Cross-Functionally: Align engineering work with UX, QA, SRE, and Infrastructure for cohesive product delivery.
• Oversee Production Operations: Ensure services meet uptime goals, support on-call processes, and lead incident response coordination for critical issues.
• Mentor Engineering Leaders: Develop senior engineers and managers, elevating execution and ownership across the organization.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience delivering large-scale, distributed, cloud-native systems in production.
• 5+ years leading engineering organizations across multiple teams and technical domains.
• Expertise in at least two major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), including deep understanding of services and infrastructure.
• Strong technical background in backend development, distributed systems, and infrastructure automation.
• Proficiency in modern development tools and cloud-native technologies (e.g., Golang, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform).
• Proven ability to lead complex technical organizations, drive SDLC execution, and scale teams and processes in dynamic, fast-paced environments.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills across engineering, product, and operational functions.