Senior Director of Engineering

About the role

Are you ready to shape the future of authentication? Join 1Kosmos and help lead the next wave in identity assurance and passwordless innovation.

1Kosmos is driving the future of identity security, empowering organizations to eliminate passwords and establish trust at every step of the identity lifecycle. As a vibrant team of innovators, we develop advanced authentication solutions trusted by some of the world’s leading brands. Join us as we create a passwordless world and set new standards for digital identity assurance.

• Your Title: Senior Director of Engineering
• Your Location: Hybrid – Edison, NJ HQ
• You Report to: SVP of Engineering and Chief Architect

Compensation

$225,000 or more depending upon experience

At 1Kosmos, our leaders are active, builder-first contributors. We are looking for an engineering leader who stays close to the code—someone who enjoys diving into technical challenges, understanding system internals, and driving execution from the front lines through active participation in architectural design, code reviews, and hands-on problem-solving.

You possess an "always sleeveless" mindset: no task is too technical, no bug is too small, and no architecture is too complex for you to dive into. You will step into a cloud-agnostic microservices environment, gain deep context on what we’ve built, and actively drive execution, performance, security, and system evolution.

What You’ll Do

• Lead from the Front: Manage, mentor, and elevate a mid-sized engineering team while remaining deeply technical and hands-on in code, system design, and infrastructure.
• Master Existing Architecture First: Take full ownership of existing architectures. Deeply understand the whybehind our current design decisions before making tactical shifts or introducing new paradigms.
• Build Real Agentic Systems: Work hands-on with our agentic stack (AWS Bedrock / Python / Node), going far beyond basic LLM prompts or chatbots. Open the hood to optimize agent workflows, orchestration, reliability, and security.
• Drive Performance & Security: Maintain a relentless focus on low latency, high throughput, platform resilience, and enterprise security across our cloud-agnostic microservices topology.
• Own Delivery & Reliability: Partner with product and QA leads to ensure clean, reliable, and zero-downtime deployments.
• Foster a Zero-Ego Culture: Build a collaborative environment where ownership is non-negotiable, and execution speaks louder than slides.

What you bring

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with recent, hands-on engineering leadership (Director / VP level in high-growth B2B SaaS).
• Core Microservices Stack: Deep, practical experience in Node.js (90% of our stack) alongside Java or GoLang.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Hands-on mastery of containerized, cloud-agnostic environments (Kubernetes, AWS).
• Applied Agentic Experience: Demonstrated experience building and operationalizing autonomous agents and agentic workflows (experience with AWS Bedrock is a huge plus).
• Security-First Mindset: Deep appreciation for platform security, identity management, compliance, and secure software development practices.
• Leadership Style: Proven track record of both building 0-to-1 systems and taking ownership of mature, inherited codebases.

Who thrives here

• Builders who love creating something from nothing and aren't afraid of rolling up their sleeves
• Fast movers who navigate ambiguity with confidence and iterate at speed
• Problem solvers who are energized by complex, evolving challenges
• Collaborators who can influence without authority and build strong cross-functional relationships
• Data enthusiasts who let evidence drive decisions, not opinions
• Mission-driven professionals passionate about fighting fraud and protecting customers

What we offer

Opportunity to build and lead a critical function at a high-growth Series B startup

• Competitive salary and equity package
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Unlimited PTO Policy

Collaborative, fast-paced culture where your impact is immediate and visible