Director, Engineering

LILT is the leading AI solution for enterprise translations. Our stack made up of our Contextual AI Engine, Connector APIs, and Human Adaptive Feedback enable global organizations to adopt a true AI translation strategy, focusing on business outcomes instead of outputs. With LILT, innovative, category-defining organizations like Intel, ASICS, WalkMe, Canva, Bloomberg, Walmart, AWS, and Philips are using AI technology to deliver multilingual, digital customer experiences at scale.

At a high level, LILT’s AI technology foundation is similar to ChatGPT and Google Translate, before our patented Contextual AI Engine, connector-first approach, and human-adapted feedback.

Get the best of both worlds at LILT! Dive into dynamic in-office energy 2 days a week, sparking creativity and forging bonds with your awesome team. Then, seamlessly shift gears and crush your to-do list from the comfort of your home base for the rest of the week. It's the perfect harmony of productivity and personal freedom. Want a peek inside? Visit our Careers page!

This position is based out of our DC, Indy, Emeryville, or Boston office and you will be expected to work in the office in a hybrid capacity. For the D.C. and Boston metropolitan areas, you will start as fully remote and then transition to hybrid once offices are opened in those locations. 

U.S. citizenship and residency is a precondition of employment. 

The Engineering Team at LILT

LILT is a high-performance, large-scale multilingual translation and creation system. We invest in and prioritize workflow (i.e., usability and interface design) and backend AI systems. Since the translation workforce is distributed worldwide, there are interesting cloud engineering problems to solve. We have a strong preference for building our own backend technology, so you’ll be implementing and working with the latest natural language processing (NLP) techniques and ideas.

What you’ll do

As Director, Engineering, you’ll lead our backend and infrastructure teams. You will be responsible for supporting the career development of our managers and leaders building and deploying core backend services that are the foundation for all LILT products. You’ll work closely with our product and project management organizations to ensure we are building the right software for the private and public sectors, translator community, and services team in a reliable and predictable fashion. 

We are looking for candidates who have a strong technical vision and can help guide teams and design organizational structure over the long term but aren't afraid of rolling up their sleeves and getting down in the weeds on a technical challenge. You'll need to be open to experimenting, and iterating on processes as the company grows. You'll need to be empathic, supportive, and excited to teach as well as learn. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership:

  • Support and execute on the Engineering Vision: Setting the technical direction for the team, through quarterly OKRs, based on the organization’s direction while aligning the team with LILT’s overall goals and business objectives.

  • Prioritize Projects & Resources: Determine which projects to pursue and allocate limited resources (people, budget, technology) effectively to support LILT’s overall goals and business objectives.

  • Build & Manage High-Performing Teams: Recruit, hire, and develop talented engineers, fostering a healthy, positive, and productive work environment.

• Operational Excellence:

  • Innovation: Constantly evolve our software development processes and drive adoption of AI technology to bring a competitive advantage to LILT. 

  • Ensure Project Delivery: Oversee the execution of engineering projects and ensure projects are completed ahead of schedule, below budget, and meet LILT’s high quality standards.

  • Implement & Maintain Engineering Processes: Establish and enforce HIGH engineering best practices, methodologies, and “Raising the Bar” standards across the organization, effectively managing the tech debt backlog while adding functionalities.

  • Manage Risks & Dependencies: Identify and mitigate technical risks while managing dependencies between different projects, teams, and departments.

• Communication & Collaboration:

  • Communicate Effectively: Clearly communicate, upward and downward, technical decisions and priorities to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.  Ensure team members understand the meaning, importance, and timeliness.

  • Collaborate with Cross-Functional Teams: Work effectively with other departments (product, marketing, sales, etc.) to ensure alignment and support for engineering initiatives as well as for customer enablement & support.

  • Build Strong Relationships: Fostering positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including public and commercial customers, vendors, and partners.

Experience:

• Technical Expertise: A minimum of 10 years of experience in engineering, with 8+ years in a leadership position. Strong understanding of the relevant technical domain (e.g., software development, data science, etc.) and experience working on complex projects.

• Management Experience: Proven track record of successfully leading and mentoring engineering teams globally. Experience managing multiple managers and handling cross-functional, global teams for high performing collaboration.

• Strategic Vision: Ability to execute technical strategies while ensuring alignment with the business goals. Understanding of market trends and how technology can be leveraged for competitive advantage.

Skills & Abilities:

• Leadership: Exceptional leadership skills, including the ability to motivate, inspire, and empower teams. Strong communication, interpersonal, and conflict resolution skills. 

• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. 

• Project Management: Strong project management skills, including the ability to set goals, prioritize tasks, and track progress. Proactive nature to communicate delays, roadblocks, or other issues along with solutions.

• Decision-Making: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Ability to make sound decisions under pressure and in ambiguous situations. Ability to provide recommendations as well as proactive ideas to mitigate future problems.

• People Management: Ability to build high-performing teams, promote a positive culture, and develop talent. Skilled in coaching, mentoring, and performance management. Able to hold tough performance conversations while inspiring high performance outcomes.

• Technical Acumen: Staying up-to-date with relevant technologies and trends is crucial.

Education:

• A Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field is usually required, Master’s degree preferred.

Our Story

Our founders, Spence and John met at Google working on Google Translate.  As researchers at Stanford and Berkeley, they both worked on language technology to make information accessible to everyone. They were amazed to learn that Google Translate wasn’t used for enterprise products and services inside the company and left to start a new company to address this need – LILT. 

At its core, LILT has always been a machine learning company since its incorporation on March 6, 2015. At the time, machine translation didn’t meet the quality standard for enterprise translations, so LILT assembled a cutting-edge research team tasked with closing that gap. While meeting customer demand for translation services, LILT has prioritized investments in Large Language Models, believing that this foundation was imperative to the future of enterprise translation.

Benefits:

• Compensation: Market based salary, meaningful equity, 401(k) matching, and flexible time off plus company holidays.

• Medical Benefits: Employees receive coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance, plus FSA/DFSA, HSA, and Commuter benefits. In addition, LILT pays for basic life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability.

• Paid parental leave is provided after 6 months.

• Monthly lifestyle benefit stipend via the Fringe platform to allow employees to customize benefits to their lifestyle.

LILT is an equal opportunity employer. We extend equal opportunity to all individuals without regard to an individual’s race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic characteristics, veteran or marital status, pregnancy, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state or federal laws. We are committed to the principles of fair employment and the elimination of all discriminatory practices.