Director of Engineering - Croatia

We’re looking for a Director of Engineering to partner with our CTO in leading, developing, and scaling our engineering team. You’ll focus primarily on leading project teams and people management while staying involved in key technical decisions across projects. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, multi-tech-stack agency environment, and enjoys shaping both teams and systems.

Our Mission, Vision, and Values

At Space Inch, we prioritize alignment with our clients and team, ensuring a deep understanding of their needs. We are committed to delivering exceptional work while supporting the personal and professional growth of our team members.

Working at Space Inch

• Our remote-first team (~45 people) is primarily based in Croatia, with members in South America, Serbia, and the US.
• Occasional travel may be required, including annual company retreats in Croatia.
• We work on a mix of end-to-end development and staff augmentation projects.
• We strongly support work/life balance for our team members.

Requirements

• At least 10+ years of experience in Software Development, of which at least 3+ leading other software engineers

• Experience managing both individual contributors and managers in an agency or consultancy setting
• Solid knowledge of development principles across a variety of programming languages, while having deep expertise in at least one of the following: Vue.js, React.js, Angular, Python, Node.js, Nest.js, Java, C#
• Solid “project management” skills, in terms of being able to handle input from multiple teams/direct reports on the status of projects and report to CTO/management weekly, taking special care to bubble up any problems as soon as possible
• Strong communication and leadership skills—especially in distributed environments.
• Proven ability to guide teams through technical and organizational ambiguity.
• Hands-off coding, but hands-on with architectural and strategic guidance.

Key Responsibilities

• Proactive Problem Solving: Identify and address challenges promptly, especially when teams or individuals encounter difficulties.
• Collaborative Engagement: Foster open communication with team members, encouraging a collaborative environment.
• Support for Struggling Teams: Be proactive in assisting and resolving issues when teams or individuals face challenges, ensuring project success without alienating team members.
• Client Needs. Understand business needs of the clients and be able to articulate those needs to engineers.
• Technical Excellence: Ensure the projects maintain a high standard of technical excellence while being completed on time, within scope and budget and with few bugs.

Typical Challenges You’ll Be Solving

• Balancing short-term delivery needs with long-term tech and team health.
• Supporting managers in navigating performance concerns and growth cases.
• Helping teams structure complex projects across varying tech stacks.
• Maintaining cohesion and shared standards across multiple project teams.

Qualities for Success

• A thoughtful leader who prioritizes team health, clarity, and accountability.
• Technically credible without needing to be the architect of every system.
• Comfortable making tough calls and giving direct feedback with empathy.
• Enjoys building processes that support autonomy and scale.
• Excellence in people management
• Detailed and analytical approach to project oversight

Where You’ve Likely Developed These Skills

• Leading engineering orgs at the Director or Senior Manager level in a digital agency or multi-project environment.
• Working closely with technical teams while focusing on growth, performance, and delivery.
• Shaping people and process strategies in high-velocity or cross-functional teams.

The Role Is Right for You If

• You’re the sort of person who gets the jobs done. You don’t worry about industries, stacks, or personalities too much. You understand problems and you will get your hands dirty to solve them.
• You get challenging projects back on-track and get engineers unstuck.
• You’re excited about new technologies but you don’t overbuild. You never let that excitement get in the way of creating the right technical choice for the clients business needs.
• You have systems, guidelines, and rubrics to guide your approach to problems.

The Role Is Not Right for You If

• You’re looking for a primarily hands-on coding role.
• You prefer working in a single tech stack or on long-term product teams only.
• You’re uncomfortable with performance management responsibilities.

Benefits

What’s In It for You

• Partner closely with the CTO to influence engineering at scale.
• Contribute to impactful digital projects across a variety of domains.
• Work in a remote-friendly, collaborative, and pragmatic culture.
• Be part of a leadership team that values people-first thinking and technical excellence.

Benefits

• Competitive salary: 6.200,00€ – 7.700,00€ gross/month.
• Remote-first setup with optional Zagreb office use.
• Multisport card or sport subsidy.
• 100% paid sick leave.
• Annual health checkups and Christmas bonus.
• Education budget for learning and growth.