Level: Director | Location: Remote US | Reports to: CTO. What’s the role: Estuary powers right-time data replication and transform, from sub-second CDC to terabyte-scale OLAP data flows. We’re formalizing a Platform (foundational services) vs Applications (SaaS and technology integrations, transformation UX, AI enablement) structure by hiring a Head of Applications Engineering to lead strategy, people, delivery, and operations as we transition from a flat team of generalists to durable, high-ownership pods; peer to the Head of Platform Engineering (founder CTO as interim). What you’ll do: Optimize project delivery and wrangle competing needs into a focused technical pipeline; Maintain SLOs and manage triage/response, safeguarding a “fix bugs first” culture; Manage and nurture the Applications team; Partner tightly with co-founders and functional leads to define roadmaps and commitments; Drive operational excellence and process improvements; Own hiring across sourcing, screening, interview structure, scoring, and onboarding; Be a player‑coach, reviewing designs, building prototypes, and contributing code with sound judgment of "do" vs "delegate". Qualifications: 8–12+ years in platform engineering with 3–5+ years leading teams; managed 8–20 engineers across 2–4 pods; Proven leadership introducing structure and excellence across multiple teams in complex B2B domains; Evidence of hiring/leveling senior ICs and tech leads; manager‑of‑managers a plus; Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders; Experience leading incident response; Interest in data‑intensive applications and platforms. How we work: High autonomy and user engagement; Remote‑first, Slack‑centric, async‑friendly with VCs as needed; Global team leaning east-coast hours. Compensation & leveling: Market‑competitive cash + equity.