Director of Engineering

Director of Engineering Location: Hyderabad, India | Department: Engineering & Product Development | Compensation: ₹40-50 LPA (Fixed) About SmartDocs SmartDocs is a 16-year-old, profitable, bootstrapped enterprise SaaS company providing procurement and spend management solutions to large enterprises globally. We compete head-to-head with SAP Ariba and Coupa, serving 26 enterprise customers—primarily major US infrastructure organizations whose operations depend on our platform processing millions of dollars in procurement transactions daily. Our platform processes millions of dollars in procurement transactions for Fortune 500 companies. We're in the midst of an ambitious R&D transformation evolving from our successful bootstrapped roots to implement Silicon Valley-grade engineering operations, processes, and excellence. This is not a corporate job. This is a builder's role. People who were associated with US tolling system, spend management platform or Vendor Management system is highly preferable Who We're Looking For The Ideal Background We're specifically seeking technical leaders with entrepreneurial battle scars —those who've been founding engineers, technical co-founders, or early engineering leaders who built something from scratch. You understand what it takes to ship quality software when every decision matters. You've made tough technical calls with real consequences. You know the difference between perfectionism and pragmatism because you've lived both. You might be: • A technical co-founder or founding engineer who took a startup from idea to production • An early engineering leader (first 5-10 hires) who architected and scaled a product • A tech-savvy entrepreneur who built and shipped a technical product to real customers • A CTO or Engineering Director from a bootstrapped, capital-efficient company • Someone who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with founders/CEOs on mission-critical applications where system reliability directly impacted business survival What matters most: You've built something significant with your own hands, made critical technical decisions with constrained resources, and understand the weight of engineering choices when real customers and revenue depend on your platform. We value entrepreneurial experience —whether your venture achieved unicorn status, profitability, got acquired, or taught you invaluable lessons through a pivot or wind-down. What we care about is that you were in the arena making things happen. The Technical Must-Haves This isn't about checking boxes—we need someone who can actually architect, build, and fix things when necessary: Core Technical Requirements • 7-15 years of hands-on software engineering experience • Someone who have experience with products or projects in US tolling system, Vendor management system or spend Management. • Expert-level proficiency in: • Java and Spring Boot (not just familiarity—you've architected and built production systems) • MongoDB (you understand document design, indexing, performance optimization) • React or Angular (you can jump into frontend code when needed) • Exposure to Azure (VMs, cloud services, deployments) • Experience with mission-critical applications where system failures have serious business consequences • 3-5+ years leading engineering teams —you've managed managers and scaled teams The "Founder/Builder" Technical DNA • You've written production code recently—not just reviewed it from a distance • You understand technical debt as business trade-offs, not engineering failures • You've made build-vs-buy decisions with real budget constraints • You know how to extract maximum value from lean teams • You've shipped features with imperfect information and learned fast • You've worked directly with business stakeholders (founders, CEOs, customers) translating technical complexity into business outcomes The Role: What You'll Actually Do Engineering Leadership (Not Just Management) • Lead 4 engineering managers and 15+ engineers building our Java/Spring Boot/MongoDB/Angular platform • Own end-to-end execution: from sprint planning to production deployment to customer success • Make real-time technical decisions—architecture reviews, production incident response, technical feasibility assessments • Balance feature delivery against technical debt with P&L consciousness (like an owner, not just an employee) • Roll up your sleeves when critical issues need senior technical intervention Building World-Class Operations (Without Corporate Bureaucracy) • Implement engineering processes that actually improve velocity (not ones that look good on slides) • Establish meaningful metrics—code quality, deployment frequency, incident response times, team velocity • Build CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment automation from scratch or improve existing ones • Create engineering standards that balance enterprise requirements with startup agility • Scale processes from 15 to 50+ engineers without losing execution speed or creating red tape Strategic Partnership with Leadership • Report directly to our CTO—partner on technical strategy and architecture decisions • Work closely with CEO on company trajectory, R&D transformation, and growth initiatives • Translate technical constraints and opportunities into business language for stakeholders • Collaborate with Product Management on roadmap prioritization and technical feasibility • Coordinate with US-based customers on implementations, integrations, and technical requirements Technical Transformation Initiatives • Consolidate customer-specific code branches into unified, maintainable codebase • Reduce technical debt systematically without stalling feature delivery • Modernize legacy components while maintaining 99.9% uptime for enterprise customers • Build scalable architecture that supports future growth without over-engineering • Drive adoption of modern development practices that fit our business reality What Success Looks Like In 90 Days: • Built credibility with the team through technical competence and decisive action • Identified top 3-5 process improvements and started implementation • Resolved at least one critical technical issue that was blocking progress • Established clear communication rhythms with enginee