Director of Engineering

Nox is hiring a Director of Engineering to build the software organization and systems that run the company — owning technical direction, engineering execution, and team development across customer software, internal operations, data, infrastructure, and applied ML. It’s explicitly a hands-on leadership role: you make architecture and hiring decisions but stay close to the code, the factory floor, and the people using what you build. The goal isn’t software for its own sake — it’s a faster, more reliable American metals supply chain.

The bar Jack set in the intake is specific: less about deep manufacturing experience, more about having applied frontier technology at scale at a company that won — someone who’s shipped something genuinely compelling (AI or another breakthrough) inside a winning org, not a founding-CTO-of-a-mediocre-startup. He wants someone hungry and on the rise, not too old, who other engineers gravitate toward (ideally with a built-in network, since you’ll recruit alongside the founders constantly). Profile is flexible: a high-performing senior SWE (mid-to-late 20s) on a clear leadership path comes in as Director; someone who’s been a director-by-scope also works — if forced to pick, Jack leans Director. The scaling thought-partnership (1→n) is what the founders most need; they’re strong at 0→1 themselves.

You Will

• Set the technical strategy and engineering roadmap for the company
• Recruit, develop, and lead a high-performing engineering team
• Establish durable architecture across customer, commercial, and manufacturing systems
• Stay close enough to the code to review critical designs and unblock difficult work
• Turn company priorities into clear technical plans, owners, and delivery dates
• Raise the standard for reliability, security, testing, observability, documentation
• Work directly with sales, ops, finance, and manufacturing to understand real workflows
• Build an engineering culture of speed, judgment, ownership, and direct user contact
• Make thoughtful build-vs-buy decisions and manage technical risk; measure whether engineering improves customer experience and factory performance

You Are

• A strong technical leader who moves fluidly between architecture, execution, and people management — still technically sharp, willing to get into details
• Experienced shipping and operating business-critical software
• Applied frontier tech (AI or another breakthrough) at scale, at a company that won (the core bar)
• Clear on priorities; decides with incomplete information
• A direct, thoughtful communicator who raises the performance of people around them
• Comfortable with both engineers and factory operators
• Motivated by measurable business/operational outcomes; low ego, high ownership, steady under pressure
• Hungry, on the rise, not too old; a magnet for other engineers (built-in network a big plus)

Nice to Have

• Manufacturing, logistics, supply chain, or industrial software
• Optimization, data products, or production ML
• Scaling an engineering team in a fast-growing company
• Comfort using AI tools to improve engineering speed/quality

Background Nox values / screens on

• Winning-organization DNA — having been part of an org that does things incredibly well (he screens out “founding CTO of a startup that kind of sucked”)
• College pedigree matters to him (even in late 20s — a proxy for consistent, long-run excellence; he named Georgia Tech and Harvey Mudd as favorites) — though ultimately “winning org + demonstrated technical trials” is the real bar
• Archetype examples he cited: ex-SpaceX engineers (esp. mechanical-to-software transitions), Rainmaker-type “applied frontier tech at scale” profiles

Who Will Thrive Here

• A hands-on eng leader who’s applied frontier tech at scale at a winning company and wants to build an org from the ground up
• A hungry, on-the-rise technologist other engineers follow, with a network to recruit from
• Someone energized by measurable factory/customer outcomes and comfortable on the floor
• Low-ego, high-ownership, direct, steady under pressure
• The 1→n scaling thought-partner the 0→1 founders need