Head of Engineering - Distributed Systems

Description : We're mandated to hire for a climate-tech startup reimagining water infrastructure using IoT, edge computing, and machine learning. We operate at the intersection of hardware, data, and distributed systems, solving real-world challenges in water management at scale.We are looking for a Head of Engineering to own and drive the complete engineering vision - from device-level intelligence to cloud platforms and ML-driven decision systems.What Youll Own :- Define and lead the end-to-end engineering architecture across device, edge, and cloud layers- Build scalable data platforms and real-time pipelines for high-frequency telemetry- Design systems that are resilient to low-connectivity, noisy data, and field constraints- Drive ML adoption in production, including monitoring, feedback loops, and continuous improvement- Establish strong engineering practices across system design, reliability, and scalability- Hire, mentor, and scale a high-caliber engineering teamWhat Were Looking For :- 10+ years of experience building and scaling backend/platform systems- Strong foundation in distributed systems, system design, and cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure)- Experience working on IoT / edge / hardware-integrated platforms OR real-world distributed systems (logistics, mobility, infra-tech)- Hands-on experience with data engineering / streaming systems (Kafka, Spark, etc.)- Exposure to ML systems in production (not just experimentation)- Proven track record of leading teams (1030 engineers) and driving architectural decisionsWhy This Role is Different : - Not a typical SaaS role - youll build systems that operate in unstructured, real-world environments- Solve a mission-critical problem at scale (water sustainability)- High ownership across 0?1 and scale-up phases- Opportunity to define the technology backbone of a category-defining company (ref:hirist.tech)