Director of Engineering - Cloud

About the position

Ditto is at an inflection point. We're hitting a massive scaling phase, and we need an exceptional engineering leader to ensure our cloud product can support this hyper-growth journey. This is a unique opportunity to join a company at the beginning of its rapid expansion and shape the future of our technical foundation.

As Director of Engineering - Cloud, you will lead and unify our cloud product teams which build our cloud CRDT-based database, data integrations technologies (HTTP APIs, Kafka streams), CDC (change data capture) pipelines, and connectors to other database systems. You'll be responsible for converting the product vision into engineering reality and translating customer needs into highly resilient and scalable cloud-native designs, supported by world class teams, best in class observability, and a run-what-you-build mindset. You'll work closely with our Infrastructure group (Platform, Performance and Release Engineering, and SRE teams) and report to the VP of Engineering. Your mission will be to strengthen the bond between the cloud product teams and our SRE and platform teams, fostering collaboration, and building a world-class product supported by an operational mindset in support Ditto's ambitious growth plans.

You’ll oversee a rapidly growing organization currently composed of ~15 engineers across multiple teams, with an immediate doubling of headcount planned, and further significant investment in the next 12–18 months.

Unlike many cloud roles, this position places you at the intersection of cloud-native reliability and cutting-edge distributed database technologies (like CRDTs), powering real-time data sync across edge devices and the cloud. While this is a senior leadership role, the ideal candidate will have a strong technical backbone and may remain involved in architectural reviews and deep-dive design sessions as needed.

As Director of Engineering - Cloud, you will:

• Deliver a seamless cloud experience that powers real-time data sync and earns developer love

• Lead and manage our cloud database and product teams. Manage managers and key ICs such as architects and senior staff engineers

• Define and drive the vision for cloud product excellence—from architecture to operational maturity.

• Play a central role in evolving Ditto’s engineering culture to prioritize reliability and resilience in our mission-critical software. Evangelize this mission across the company—from all hands and strategy sessions to day-to-day execution.

• Develop and execute a comprehensive cloud-native strategy that prepares our product for massive scale based on current sales trajectory

• Strengthen the bond between cloud product and our SRE and Platform teams

• Ensure seamless integration of our cloud product with all major cloud service providers

• Build and mentor multiple high-performing teams of database and cloud engineers

• Collaborate with Product, Sales, and other Engineering teams to align our cloud capabilities with business needs

• Build and architect our cloud product with cost efficiency in mind

• Establish SLOs, monitoring, and alerting strategies to ensure reliability at scale

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in cloud engineering, with deep expertise in distributed systems or database internals

• 5+ years of experience with Kubernetes in production environments

• 5+ years of experience managing database or distributed systems teams

• Proven track record of managing teams of 15+ people and scaling engineering organizations

• Strong AWS experience is required. Experience with GCP and Azure is highly desired

• Advanced knowledge of cloud best practices and infrastructure automation

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences

• Strong conflict management and leadership skills

• Strategic thinking abilities with a focus on business outcomes

• Track record of successfully transforming early products into systems supporting massive scale

• Experience managing teams through hyper-growth and scale-up phases

Nice to have:

• Experience with database internals or in database product teams

• Experience with multi-region and multi-cloud architectures

• Background in edge computing, peer-to-peer systems, or distributed database technologies is a strong plus

• Previous experience working with enterprise customers with high reliability requirements