Director, Engineering, Enterprise

Job description

AI AT ZAPIER At Zapier https://zapier.com/about, we build and use automation every day to make work more efficient, creative, and human. So if you’re using AI tools while applying here - that’s great! We just ask that you use them responsibly and transparently. Check out our guidance on How to Collaborate with AI During Zapier’s Hiring Process https://zapier.com/l/jobs/ai-at-zapier, including how to use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or others during our hiring process - and when not to. Location: North America Hi there! Zapier is becoming the governed action, context, and execution layer for agents: the platform enterprises trust to let AI act on their real systems, safely. The Enterprise engineering organization builds the foundation that promise depends on - identity, access, audit, and administrative control that hold up whether the actor taking action is a human clicking through a Zap, code running on a schedule, or an AI agent operating on its own. We're looking for a Director of Engineering to lead Zapier's Enterprise engineering organization into its next phase of growth. As agent adoption accelerates and the bar for enterprise trust keeps rising, this org's work is becoming more central to Zapier's strategy, and you'll have real latitude to shape what world-class identity, audit, and governance infrastructure looks like at Zapier's next scale. You'll partner closely with a group of engineers, product managers, designers, peer leaders across the org, and with go-to-market teams who depend on your organization to close and support Zapier's largest customers. You’ll have real influence shaping the operating mechanics of your org. We're looking for someone energized by exactly this kind of work: someone who wants to build the definitive playbook for how Zapier governs AI acting on behalf of its customers, at the moment that work matters most. We know applying for and taking on a new job at any company requires a leap of faith. We want you to feel comfortable and excited to apply at Zapier. To help share a bit more about life at Zapier, here are a few resources in addition to the job description that can give you an inside look at what life is like at Zapier. Hopefully, you'll take the leap of faith and apply. - Our Commitment to Applicants https://zapier.com/jobs/our-commitment-to-applicants/ - Culture and Values at Zapier https://zapier.com/jobs/culture-and-values-at-zapier/ - Zapier Guide to Remote Work https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/ - Zapier Code of Conduct https://zapier.com/jobs/zapier-code-of-conduct/ - Diversity and Inclusivity at Zapier https://zapier.com/jobs/working-on-diversity-and-inclusivity/ Even though our job description may seem like we're looking for a specific candidate, the role inevitably ends up tailored to whoever applies and joins. Regardless of how well you feel you fit our description, we encourage you to apply if you meet these criteria: ABOUT YOU You think in terms of governance, not just features. You understand that identity, access control, audit, and policy aren't compliance checkboxes - they're the trust infrastructure that determines whether enterprises can safely let AI act on their systems. You've built or led systems where getting this wrong has real consequences, and you bring that judgment to every product and architecture decision. You raise the bar on reliability as you scale. You've built strong service ownership models, clear on-call practices, and durable quality bars in fast-growing engineering organizations. You treat reliability and operational excellence as a competitive advantage rather than an afterthought, and you know how to instill that discipline in a team that's scaling quickly. You set technical direction - you don't just execute someone else's. You partner deeply with Product and Design as peers and shape strategy together, but you bring a strong, independent engineering point of view to that partnership. You're comfortable being the person who pushes back on a roadmap when the technical or operational reality demands it. You've scaled engineering organizations through structural change. You've led teams of managers and technical leads through real organizational transitions, not just steady-state growth - shifting operating models, redefining ownership, or integrating new ways of working. You know how to bring a team through ambiguity without losing their trust or their output. You are deeply customer- and stakeholder-oriented. You've worked directly with sales, customer success, and enterprise customers to understand what "enterprise-ready" actually means in practice, and you've made the tradeoffs between enterprise scale and delivery speed. You're a credible, responsive partner to go-to-market teams without letting reactive asks crowd out foundational work. You've driven engineering quality and velocity with data. You've established data-driven approaches to measuring delivery, reliability, and quality, and used them to make real investment tradeoffs rather than to produce a dashboard. You have a point of view on balancing reactive/KTLO work against proactive investment, with mechanisms to keep that balance honest. You are a skilled mentor, coach, and communicator. You have a track record of developing engineers and engineering leaders, and you communicate proactively and clearly, in writing by default, to align technical and non-technical stakeholders on vision, tradeoffs, and results. You lead AI-native engineering, not just AI-native products. You've used AI coding agents and orchestration tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or similar), and you have a concrete point of view on how they change what "good" engineering practice looks like - code review, on-call ownership, and quality bars all need rethinking when a meaningful share of code is agent-authored. You embed accountability into AI-assisted workflows rather than lowering the bar for velocity, and you expect the same discipline from your teams. You champion efficiency and leverage. At Zapier, your work has a disproportionate impact on the business. You default to AI-first thinking in your own work and your team's, and you build systems and practices that compound impact over time rather than relying on heroics. WHAT YOU'LL BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR This organization spans identity and access management, audit and compliance infrastructure, admin and asset management tooling, AI/agent governance, and enterprise customer-facing engineering. Governance Vision & Strategy - Define and drive the strategy and roadmap for Zapier's Enterprise Governance bet, in partnership with Product and Design leaders and connected explicitly to Zapier's company-wide agent strategy - Own the org’s technical point of view on identity, access, audit, and policy, and defend it in cross-functional and executive settings - Make the staffing and investment trade-off calls across initiatives that no single initiative or team can make for itself AI-Native Governance & Engineering - Own the technical roadmap for the systems that let enterprises govern AI acting on their behalf: identity and permissions for agents, audit trails for actions, and policy controls that scale beyond human-only usage - Define what safe, accountable AI-native engineering practice looks like for your own teams - code review, on-call ownership, quality bars for agent-authored work - Identify and implement AI-powered tooling that accelerates your teams' own delivery velocity and quality Reliability & Trust - Be accountable for the reliability of Zapier's identity, audit, and admin infrastructure, including the Tier-1 services enterprise customers depend on most - Build bench strength and resilience across critical systems as the team and its scope continue to grow - Step in during major incidents, coordinating cross-functional resources and setting stakeholder expectations when severity demands senior leadership involvement Customer & Cross-Org Partnership - Partner directly with Sales, Customer Success, and enterprise customers to translate real deal and support needs into a defensible engineering roadmap - Take ownership by default on cross-org technical initiatives touching identity and governance - including new shared infrastructure being built with adjacent orgs - rather than waiting to be assigned Team Building & Talent - Build on and further develop the strong enterprise engineering organization - Ensure managers and ICs have clear growth paths and the feedback they need to improve; develop the next generation of engineering leaders - Own the output and outcomes of your teams and the systems they own APPLICATION DEADLINE: The anticipated application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later, or if the position is filled. Even though we’re an all-remote company, we still need to be thoughtful about where we have Zapiens working. Check out this resource https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_lXQvKwuU4xXEbye7EW_En8iv1ZIMlQNmT7B2Mzbo24/edit?gid=0#gid=0 for a list of countries where we currently cannot have Zapiens permanently working.