Director, System Development

At Audible, we believe stories have the power to transform lives. It’s why we work with some of the world’s leading creators to produce and share audio storytelling with our millions of global listeners. We are dreamers and inventors who come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences to empower and inspire each other. Imagine your future with us.

ABOUT THIS ROLE
As a Director of Systems Development, you are a part of the technical leadership at Audible and lead a team of high velocity System Development Engineers (SysDE). A “hands-on” technical leader, you are accountable for portions of the architecture, which includes taking ownership of the design and quality of the security, performance, availability, and operational aspects of the systems built by your team. You split your time between management, development, design, and architecture based on where your skills will have the greatest impact (or in response to job requirements). The exact role you play may also change as a larger initiative progresses; during the early phases, broadly influencing your team as well as several related teams and then subsequently spending weeks or months focusing on a particularly challenging system. Sometimes the mix goes the other way, and you spend most of your time broadly influencing multiple teams while occasionally taking a deep dive into a critical or complex area within a particular team.

ABOUT YOU
You amplify your impact by leading design reviews for complex systems and/or critical features both within your organization or at your location. You probe assumptions, illuminate pitfalls, and foster shared understanding. You align the team toward coherent architectural strategies. You and your team educate, keeping the engineering community up to date on advanced technical issues, technologies, and trends. You participate, sharing knowledge and collaborating with other Senior Engineers, specifically attending and/or presenting at internal conferences, Principal Engineer community events and making yourself available to global developer outreach efforts. You manage and guide the career growth of your team's members by mentoring, performing Principal promotion assessments, and participating in performance discussions. It is important to keep not only your customers happy but be the force multiplier for your direct reports to ensure team success.

As a Director, System Development, you will...
- Guide and influence infrastructure strategy, design, and implementation for various services both internal and external customer facing
- Continuously raise the bar for engineering excellence in your organization.
- Architect systems that are exemplary in terms of efficiency, stability, extensibility, and the ability to evolve over time
- Ensure that SysDE deployments are robust in the presence of failures, scalable, and cost-effective
- Partner with business leaders, technical managers and Senior/Principal Engineers to determine the long-term potential of various architectures and product offerings
- Maintain coding practices that are exemplary in terms of code organization, clarity, simplicity, error handling, and documentation
- Welcome intrinsically hard problems, acquiring expertise as needed
- Decompose complex problems into straightforward solutions
- Manage projects that may require the work of several teams to implement; divide responsibilities so that each team can work independently and have the system come together into an integrated whole
- Be flexible, adapting your approach to meet the needs of the team, project, or product
- Solicit differing views and are willing to change your mind as you learn more.
- Adept at building consensus
- Be the last escalation point... solve or manage the solution process until the issue is resolved
- Model and foster Audible’s culture

ABOUT AUDIBLE
Audible is the leading producer and provider of audio storytelling. We spark listeners’ imaginations, offering immersive, cinematic experiences full of inspiration and insight to enrich our customers daily lives. We are a global company with an entrepreneurial spirit. We are dreamers and inventors who are passionate about the positive impact Audible can make for our customers and our neighbors. This spirit courses throughout Audible, supporting a culture of creativity and inclusion built on our People Principles and our mission to build more equitable communities in the cities we call home.

A day in the life

Basic Qualifications
- 7+ years of hands-on experience as a SysDE, SRE, Dev Ops Engineer or equivalent
- 3+ years of people management experience, specifically building and leading high-performance engineering teams
- Experience collaborating with and influencing technical leaders
- Experience in creating communication strategies that engage and impact internal and external stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications
- Experience leading a SysDE organization
- Budget and financial management
- Proven ability to create structure