Director of Engineering

Our client is one of only 7 truly sovereign cloud providers in Europe - delivering real digital sovereignty by operating entirely within the EU, building on open source technologies, and complying with EU regulations. It is helping shape Europe’s vision for open, compliant, and locally operated cloud infrastructure.

They offer a full-stack IaaS & PaaS platform that combines OpenStack-based infrastructure with a fully managed Kubernetes offering and developer services - all designed for high-resilience environments and run entirely from independently operated European data centres.

Role Overview:

The Director of Engineering will lead the organisation’s Stack Division - a group of ~75 software and infrastructure engineers and architects across five teams responsible for building and running the entire cloud stack, from infrastructure to developer tooling. The division is projected to grow to 120 people over the next three years.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead a 75-person engineering division across OpenStack, Kubernetes, DBaaS, DNS, and developer platform services.
• Manage 5 managers, each responsible for multiple cross-functional (software engineering and DevOps) teams.
• Drive delivery and operational excellence across highly interconnected services.
• Facilitate cross-team coordination and architectural alignment.
• Support technical decision-making and negotiation across the product-owner layer.
• Foster transparency, accountability, and high-quality execution across teams.
• Partner with the Director of Infrastructure to plan capacity and operational scalability.

Qualifications:

• Proven leadership experience managing multiple engineering teams in a high-complexity environment.
• Hands-on background in cloud infrastructure and platform operations, including Kubernetes, containers, CI/CD, and open source tooling.
• Strong experience building and scaling SaaS products.
• Deep understanding of DevOps practices, with no build/run separation.
• Familiarity with open source technologies and active engagement in open source communities.
• Excellent coordination and moderation skills across teams with technical interdependencies.
• Fluency in English and intermediate (B1+) German abilities.
• Willingness to occasionally travel to Berlin on a monthly basis.

If you're passionate about building infrastructure that empowers Europe to reclaim its digital sovereignty - and want to help shape what a truly open, secure, and developer-first European cloud should look like - we’d love to hear from you.