Head of Engineering

LlamaIndex
San Francisco, CA
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

A natural match if you have experience leading B2B SaaS engineering teams and working with AI/ML infrastructure.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with proven leadership in B2B SaaS and hands-on experience in AI/ML infrastructure
    — “Experience leading engineering teams in B2B SaaS, with responsibility for delivering and operating customer-facing products.”
  • Individuals who have scaled engineering teams at early-stage startups and managed distributed systems
    — “Experience scaling engineering at a Series A–C startup.”
  • Candidates who have worked on enterprise systems involving data pipelines and model training/evaluation
    — “Practical familiarity with model serving and model training, including training or fine-tuning workflows, evaluation, deployment, and production operations.”

Things to consider

  • The role requires direct technical involvement, including code reviews and debugging production issues
    — “You should be comfortable reviewing code and architecture, debugging production issues, and writing code for critical systems.”
  • The position involves balancing immediate customer needs with long-term maintainability of systems
    — “Balancing immediate customer needs with long-term maintainability.”

How to stand out

  • Demonstrate your ability to set technical direction across multiple engineering domains
    — “Set technical direction across application services, APIs, data pipelines, and ML infrastructure.”
  • Emphasize your track record in improving testing, observability, and security practices
    — “Improve engineering practices for testing, observability, security, incident response, and releases.”
  • Showcase your experience with GPU infrastructure and inference optimization
    — “Experience with GPU infrastructure, distributed training, inference optimization, or model serving frameworks.”
  • Demonstrate your ability to translate customer needs into a predictable software delivery roadmap
    — “Partner with company leadership to translate customer needs into a focused roadmap and deliver software predictably.”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Company

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Successfully led and developed the engineering team, setting clear priorities, ownership, and accountability
Typical background
Experience leading engineering teams in B2B SaaS

Skills & requirements

Required

Experience Leading Engineering Teams In B2B SaasHands-on Engineering SkillsExperience With Model Serving And Model TrainingUnderstanding Of The Tradeoffs Between Model Quality, Latency, Throughput, GPU Resources, Reliability, And CostStrong Background In Backend Systems, Apis, Distributed Systems, And Cloud Infrastructure

Preferred

Experience Scaling Engineering At A Series A–C StartupExperience With Document Processing, OCR, Extraction, Retrieval, Indexing, Or Other Systems That Work With Enterprise DataExperience With Llms Or Multimodal Models, Evaluation Datasets, And Model Quality MonitoringExperience With GPU Infrastructure, Distributed Training, Inference Optimization

Stack & domain

Engineering ExecutionTechnical DirectionHiringTeam DevelopmentArchitectureCode ReviewsProduction DebuggingImplementation Of Critical ChangesApplication ServicesApisData PipelinesML InfrastructureModel TrainingModel Fine-tuningModel EvaluationModel DeploymentProduction OperationsTestingObservabilitySecurityIncident ResponseReleasesEngineering ManagersTechnical ExecutionB2B SaasCustomer-facing ProductsEngineering TeamsTechnical DomainsProduction CodeArchitecture ReviewDiagnosing Complex Technical ProblemsModel ServingTraining Or Fine-tuning WorkflowsEvaluationDeploymentBackend SystemsDistributed SystemsCloud InfrastructureModel Quality MonitoringGPU InfrastructureDistributed TrainingInference OptimizationLeadershipCommunicationTeam ManagementProblem-solvingDecision-makingCollaborationCustomer FocusResponsibility For ResultsEngineeringProduct ManagementData AnalysisAI

About the role

Original posting from LlamaIndex via Ashby

Join us and help shape the future of AI by defining the narrative around document understanding.

ABOUT THE ROLE

LlamaIndex makes enterprise data useful for AI applications.

You will own engineering execution, technical direction, hiring, and team development. You will work closely with company leadership and product teams to decide what we build, how we build it, and how we deliver it reliably to customers.

This is a hands-on role. You should be comfortable reviewing code and architecture, debugging production issues, and writing code for critical systems. We are looking for someone who has shipped and operated B2B API products and understands both model serving and model training—from experimentation and evaluation to deployment and production operations.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Lead and develop our engineering team, setting clear priorities, ownership, and accountability.
  • Partner with company leadership to translate customer needs into a focused roadmap and deliver software predictably.
  • Stay directly involved in architecture, code reviews, production debugging, and implementation of critical changes.
  • Set technical direction across application services, APIs, data pipelines, and ML infrastructure, balancing immediate customer needs with long-term maintainability.
  • Work with ML engineers and researchers on model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment, ensuring model improvements translate into better production outcomes.
  • Guide model serving decisions across latency, throughput, GPU utilization, capacity, reliability, and inference cost.
  • Improve engineering practices for testing, observability, security, incident response, and releases.
  • Hire strong engineers, coach technical leaders and managers, and build a culture of direct communication, customer focus, and responsibility for results.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

  • Experience leading multiple engineering teams in B2B SaaS, at a scope comparable to a 20–30-person organization, with responsibility for delivering and operating customer-facing products.
  • Strong, current hands-on engineering skills: you can read and write production code, review architecture, and diagnose complex technical problems.
  • Practical familiarity with model serving and model training, including training or fine-tuning workflows, evaluation, deployment, and production operations.
  • Understanding of the tradeoffs between model quality, latency, throughput, GPU resources, reliability, and cost.
  • Strong background in backend systems, APIs, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure.
  • A track record of hiring and developing engineers, setting clear expectations, and giving constructive feedback.
  • Good product judgment, including knowing when to move quickly and when to invest in correctness, reliability, and security.
  • Clear written and verbal communication with technical teams, customers, and company leadership.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

  • Experience scaling engineering at a Series A–C startup.
  • Experience with document processing, OCR, extraction, retrieval, indexing, or other systems that work with enterprise data.
  • Experience with LLMs or multimodal models, evaluation datasets, and model quality monitoring.
  • Experience with GPU infrastructure, distributed training, inference optimization, or model serving frameworks.
  • Experience building developer tools or API-first products.
  • Experience with enterprise requirements such as multi-tenancy, access controls, auditability, and security reviews.
  • Experience developing engineering managers while staying closely involved in technical execution.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

LlamaIndex does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, employees, or any other organization location. LlamaIndex is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

Source: LlamaIndex careers (Ashby)

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