Director, Engineering Excellence

Arctic Wolf, with its unicorn valuation, is the leader in security operations in an exciting and fast-growing industry—cybersecurity. We have won countless awards for our excellence in security operations and remain dedicated to providing an industry-leading customer and employee experience.

Our mission is simple: End Cyber Risk. We’re looking for a Director of Engineering to be part of making this happen.

About the Role

We are seeking a Director of Engineering Excellence to lead a high-impact organization responsible for defining the engineering standards, best practices, and processes that span across core software development, quality engineering, agile methodologies, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). This role will manage a team of multi-disciplined domain experts and collaborate closely with R&D leadership across seven product lines to drive engineering transformation initiatives that elevate the quality, reliability, and scalability of our products.

This position requires a leader with a proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive change across a diverse and fast-paced engineering organization. The ideal candidate will bring a strong engineering background with experience in modern SDLC practices, agile software delivery, quality engineering, SRE, and/or CI/CD automation.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Standards and Best Practices

• Define and implement engineering standards, processes, and best practices across software development, quality, SRE, and agile methodologies.

• Establish and promote frameworks for scalable, maintainable, and high-quality software development.

• Develop and maintain guidelines for CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and monitoring to ensure consistent delivery across all product lines.

• Drive the adoption of modern SDLC processes, ensuring teams are aligned and operating
  efficiently.

Leadership and Team Management

• Lead and develop a team of domain experts across software development, QA, SRE, and agile delivery.

• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement within the Engineering Excellence organization.

• Mentor and guide engineering managers and technical leaders across teams, ensuring alignment with engineering transformation goals.

Collaboration with R&D Leadership

• Partner closely with R&D leadership across seven product lines to influence and align on engineering transformation initiatives.

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on engineering standards and processes, enabling high-quality and reliable product delivery.

• Drive cross-product collaboration to ensure consistency and knowledge-sharing across teams.

Engineering Transformation Initiatives

• Lead and execute transformational engineering initiatives to improve development velocity, quality, and reliability across Arctic Wolf's engineering organization.

• Identify and address gaps in engineering processes and tooling to improve efficiency and reduce technical debt.

• Advocate for and implement agile methodologies to enhance team efficiency, delivery, and collaboration.

Certified Engineering Toolchain and Automation

• Advocate for and drive a standardized engineering tooling ecosystem that supports software development, quality engineering, SRE, and agile delivery.

• Drive the adoption of certified engineering development, quality, and SRE tool

• chain across all product lines to streamline workflows and enhance operational efficiency.

• Ensure observability and monitoring tools are in place to meet SRE and reliability standards.

Metrics and Continuous Improvement

• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure engineering excellence across targeted focus areas.

• Use data-driven insights to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement, driving iterative enhancements.

• Lead initiatives to reduce technical debt, improve development velocity, and enhance system reliability.

About You

• 10-15 years of engineering management experience, with a proven track record of leading and scaling engineering teams.

• Strong understanding of modern SDLC practices, including agile delivery, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps principles.

• Expertise in software development, quality engineering, and SRE practices.

• Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive change across a diverse engineering organization.

• Exposure and/or experience with engineering tooling for development, testing, monitoring, and automation (e.g., GitHub, Jenkins, Selenium, Prometheus, Grafana, Jira, etc.).

• Solid understanding of agile methodologies, including Scrum, Kanban, and/or SAFe frameworks.

• Proven leadership in driving engineering or transformation initiatives at scale.

• BS or Masters in Computer Science or Engineering.

• Experience working in a multi-product or multi-line organization, collaborating across diverse teams and stakeholders.

• Knowledge of cloud-native architectures, microservices, and containerization technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization.

• Experience working with product management balancing feature delivery with engineering initiatives.

• Familiarity with security operations or cybersecurity products is a plus.

About Arctic Wolf

At Arctic Wolf we’re cultivating a collaborative and productive work environment that welcomes a diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and ideas to make our teams even stronger as we grow globally. We’ve been named among the list of Top Workplaces in USA, Minnesota (2021-2024), and Texas (2023-2024), Best Places to Work San Antonio (2023, 2024) and Minneapolis/St. Paul (2022-2024), Great Place to Work - Canada (2021-2024), and on the list of Best Workplaces in Technology (2024) in Canada. As well as on Fortune’s Best Place to Work for Millennials (2023) and Top Technology Workplace (2023) lists.

Our Values 

Arctic Wolf recognizes that success comes from delighting our customers, so we work together to ensure that happens every day. We believe in diversity and inclusion, and truly value the unique qualities and unique perspectives all employees bring to the organization. And we appreciate that—by protecting people’s and organizations’ sensitive data and seeking to end cyber risk— we get to work in an industry that is fundamental to the greater good. 

We celebrate unique perspectives by creating a platform for all voices to be heard through our Pack Unity program. We encourage all employees to join or create a new alliance. See more about our Pack Unity here.  

We also believe and practice corporate responsibility, and have recently joined the Pledge 1% Movement, ensuring that we continue to give back to our community. We know that through our mission to End Cyber Risk we will continue to engage and give back to our communities. 

All wolves receive compelling compensation and benefits packages, including: 

• Equity for all employees

• Flexible time off, paid volunteer days, and paid parental leave

• 401k & RRSP matching program

• Enhanced maternity leave and fertility support services

• Robust Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health services

• Training and career development programs

Arctic Wolf is an Equal Opportunity Employer and considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetics, or any other basis forbidden under federal, provincial, or local law. Arctic Wolf is committed to fostering a welcoming, accessible, respectful, and inclusive environment ensuring equal access and participation for people with disabilities. As such, we strive to make our entire employee experience as accessible as possible and provide accommodations as required for candidates and employees with disabilities and/or other specific needs where possible. Please let us know if you require any accommodations by emailing [email protected]. 

Security Requirements

• Conducts duties and responsibilities in accordance with AWN’s Information Security policies, standards, processes and controls to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of AWN business information (in accordance with our employee handbook and corporate policies).

• Background checks are required for this position.