Director of Engineering

At Insomnia Cookies, we believe warm cookies and tech go hand in hand. As we continue to expand our late-night empire, our digital platforms are key to delivering exceptional guest experiences-from craveable online ordering to smooth in-store systems. We're seeking a Director of Engineering to lead the talented team behind our web and mobile applications and scale our architecture for the next chapter of growth.

The Director of Engineering is a hands-on leader who will shape the future of Insomnia's digital experience. You'll lead the engineering teams behind our ecommerce, loyalty, and store technologies, setting a high bar for both team performance and technical quality. You'll operate as a force multiplier-removing roadblocks, coaching talent, guiding architectural decisions, and pushing the boundaries of modern engineering practices, including AI-augmented development.

Reporting to the VP of Digital Product & Development, the Director will manage a team of three Full Stack Engineering Leads, and indirectly oversee engineers across multiple scrum teams. This is a hands-on leadership role where technical excellence, people development, and executional clarity are key. You'll help set and uphold best practices, modern development standards, and ensure delivery of high-quality, scalable, and secure software.

Sweet Position Perks:

* 4 day work week!! (yupp, we get every Friday off)

* A competitive base salary plus annual bonus compensation package

* A relocation package to assist in moving to the Greater Philadelphia area

* Eligibility for our Long-Term Incentive Program

* Excellent comprehensive benefits coverage that includes medical, dental, vision & pet insurance plans

* 401K with contribution match

* 3 weeks paid vacation plus 2 paid Insomnia personal wellness days

* Relaxed, fun, come as you are office culture

* Free cookies, branded swag and so much more!

Job Responsibilities:

• Leadership & Team Management
*Lead, coach, and grow a team of engineering leads and their direct reports, creating an environment of accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning
*Cultivate an engineering culture focused on innovation, speed, and quality-balancing long-term architecture with near-term delivery
*Own the technical rhythm of the team: rituals, code quality, reviews, standups, and release cadence
*Encourage experimentation and exploration of emerging technologies, including AI tooling, to improve developer velocity and product performance
*Establish and maintain engineering best practices, code quality standards, and architectural consistency across teams
*Partner with the VP of Digital Product & Development to ensure seamless execution of the product roadmap and sprint planning
*Champion agile methodologies, promote cross-functional collaboration, and streamline development operations
Engineering Oversight
*Lead development across the full stack (ReactJS, PHP/Laravel, MySQL) with deep involvement in architecture, performance optimization, and scaling
*Evaluate and implement modern tooling, patterns, and frameworks to keep our platform cutting-edge, including cloud infrastructure improvements, system integrations, and CI/CD enhancements
*Drive adoption of developer productivity tools and testing automation to reduce friction and improve release confidence
*Oversee code reviews, release cycles, testing coverage, and post-release monitoring to uphold high quality and reliability
Strategic Planning & Execution
*Contribute to the technology strategy and participate in long-term planning with product, design, and data teams
*Identify areas for innovation and optimization across frontend, backend, APIs, and infrastructure
*Actively collaborate on platform modernization and refactoring initiatives that improve performance and reduce technical debt
*Stay ahead of trends in software engineering and propose new methods to boost reliability, speed, and team effectiveness
Mentorship & Culture
*Build a healthy engineering culture grounded in transparency, innovation, and ownership
*Provide career development support and mentorship to engineers and leads
*Champion inclusivity and diversity within the engineering team

Tech Stack You'll Be Working With:

• Frontend: ReactJS, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript
• Backend: PHP/Laravel, RESTful APIs, GraphQL (plus!)
• Database: MySQL (bonus if experience with Postgres)
• Tooling: Git, CI/CD pipelines, Agile project management tools (JIRA, Azure Boards, etc.)
• Testing: Unit and integration testing frameworks
• Other: ORM frameworks (Eloquent, Django, Active Record), experience with cloud infrastructure and DevOps pipelines preferred
• Open to exploring new stacks and tools where they provide meaningful business or developer productivity gains

Desired Skills & Qualifications:

• 7+ years in full-stack development with increasing levels of responsibility; 2+ years in people leadership, ideally in fast-paced or high-growth environments
• Comfortable rolling up your sleeves while mentoring others and setting standards for technical excellence
• Strong proficiency in full-stack web development, especially with ReactJS and PHP/Laravel
• Proven experience managing, mentoring, and scaling engineering teams
• Deep understanding of modern engineering principles, including object-oriented programming, testing strategies, and agile development
• Familiarity with tools or approaches that enhance developer efficiency-whether through AI copilots, DevOps automation, or architectural simplification
• Excellent communication skills and ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders
• Track record of launching and scaling digital products, especially in ecommerce or omnichannel consumer brands
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent work experience)