Your role

We’re looking for a Director of Engineering (m/f/d) to lead multiple engineering teams with more than 30 employees. You will play a key role in shaping the next generation of the softgarden platform. This role sits at the intersection of people leadership, technical strategy, and execution. You will be part of both the Product Leadership team and the overall company leadership team, reporting directly to the CPO.

In this role, you will:
  • Lead, mentor, and grow engineering managers and senior engineers.
  • Take strategic ownership of a legacy codebase, balancing stability with progress, and drive the modernization of our tech stack, architecture, and development practices.
  • Evolve our frontend design system library in close collaboration with Product and Design to improve cross-platform consistency and development velocity.
  • Shape the technical approach to AI-powered features from experimentation to production, ensuring that solutions are scalable and aligned with data privacy and compliance requirements .
  • Set the strategic technical direction while staying pragmatic about delivery and business impact, and drive the implementation of group‑wide standards for product architecture, security, and development processes.
  • Partner with Product, Design, and Leadership to translate company goals into technical strategy and quarterly OKRs
  • Improve engineering processes, scalability, and long-term maintainability. 

What you bring along

  • Proven experience leading engineering teams at scale (Director or Senior Manager level) across multiple (remote) locations in Europe.
  • A strong record of modernising legacy systems, including refactoring, re‑architecting, or migrating to new target stacks combined with hands‑on experience in modernising tech stacks (architecture, tooling, frameworks, or infrastructure).
  • Deep expertise in building and upgrading design systems, ideally in organizations of a similar size.
  • Solid understanding of AI/ML concepts, ideally paired with experience in leading Data teams.
  • Strong technical judgment and the ability to guide architectural decisions and work hands-on with teams and team leads.
  • Excellent communication skills and a collaborative leadership style, paired with a product mindset and an appreciation for UX, consistency, and developer experience.
  • Experience in HR Tech and a solid understanding of what it means to build a B2B SaaS product for German SMBs is a plus.
  • Willingness to travel to Berlin and Saarbrücken (approx. 2-3 trips per quarter).

Why softgarden?

Coffee and free food in the office are amazing and yes, we do have those. But let's be honest, that is not what really matters. At softgarden we strive to live an open company culture, where

  • work moves around your personal life and not the other way around
  • fair communication and feedback are not just any buzzwords
  • you are trusted with flexible working hours, home office and remote work options

But of course, we also have the other benefits, too

  • Public transportation ticket or a job bike 
  • Company pension plan
  • Access to corporate benefits
  • 30 days of vacation with a 5-day week
  • Discounted Wellpass membership
  • A present for your birthday and company anniversary
  • Modern hardware
  • Team events, such as our summer party, free lunches, and after-work drinks
  • A great, central office in Berlin near the zoo

Does that sound like you? Then we look forward to hearing from you via the online application form.

Your contact: 
Tom Kleinschmidt
Talent Acquisition Manager

Working at softgarden means constantly rethinking recruiting. As one of the leading providers for recruiting solutions, we bring companies and applicants together, quickly and easily. With our unique softgarden feedback solution, employer branding strategies are optimised and employee evaluations are presented transparently.

Together with 180 employees, softgarden stands for an open company culture in which everyone motivates, listens and trusts. We are proud of our team cohesion and are looking for new colleagues to support our mission to modernise recruiting.