Head of Engineering

Global marketplaces — Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Shopify and over a hundred others — are the engines of modern commerce. But the data sits locked inside each channel, fragmented and rarely adding up to a clear picture.

MerchantSpring is the API-first data infrastructure for the businesses that operate, advise on, and build for digital commerce. We consolidate cross-channel marketplace data into a single source of truth that our customers reach through a visualisation platform, an API gateway, MCP tools and embeddable widgets.

We are profitable, self-funded, and seven years in — scaling on our own revenue rather than someone else’s runway. We are headquartered in Australia with a growing presence in Kuala Lumpur, and we operate as a single team across sites.

Today the platform spans 120+ ecommerce channels, manages roughly 12TB of data across 35,000 seller accounts in 29 countries, serving agencies, enterprise brands, and ecosystem and technology partners.

The role We are looking for a Director of Engineering to take full ownership of our engineering function and lead the next chapter: our evolution into a true API-first data platform. You will inherit a team of 11 engineers across our ETL, API and AI/MCP squads, with a structured handover from the outgoing Head of Engineering, and own the technical vision, the architecture, and the culture that carries us from startup to scale-up.

This is a builder’s leadership role. We want someone who leads from within the architecture — setting direction, making the hard technical calls, and rolling up their sleeves to code when it helps the team move or unblocks a problem. As the team grows, the role is expected to evolve further toward organisational leadership, and we say so openly because we want someone who wants that trajectory.

What you’ll own Technical vision and architecture. Translate business goals into a technical roadmap, set direction across the squads, and own the architectural bets — with our API-first data layer as the centrepiece. * Platform scale. Take our API and data platform from where they are today to scale: more channels, more volume, and more external builders relying on our endpoints, MCP tools and widgets. * Infrastructure economics. Own the unit economics of the platform. A large and growing share of our cost base sits in database and infrastructure spend, and you will be accountable for managing and driving it down as we scale with a focus on database cost: * + TimescaleDB compression, retention and continuous aggregates + Postgres query and index optimisation and right-sizing + MongoDB indexing and sharding. * Data integrity and reliability. 35,000 accounts depend on financially accurate data. Own incident practices and resilience that keep serious problems rare — and provide visible, decisive leadership on the rare occasions they aren’t. * The team culture. Hire, mentor and grow engineers; set delivery standards and best practices from documentation to deployment; and build a team where engineers want to do their best work. * Set direction. Provide oversight and guidance to talented, junior teams in AI/MCP to DevOps and infrastructure. * Partnership and foresight.* Bridge Engineering with Sales and Client Success so feedback, escalations and market signals reach the roadmap, and engage the CEO and co-founder proactively on technical strategy.

Requirements

• A hands-on architect-leader. Deep, current credibility in data and platform engineering: relational and document databases (Postgres and MongoDB), time-series data at scale, API platform design, and AWS. You code when it matters, and add value with breadth to give direction across squads.
• Commercially minded about infrastructure. You think in unit economics and have a track record of optimising and reducing database and infrastructure costs at scale.
• A people-first leader. You sit with your team, champion them, take an active interest in their development, and are the role model the junior engineers around you learn from.
• An owner. You take end-to-end accountability and step up decisively when things go wrong.
• A culture builder by instinct. You make team cohesion happen proactively: we fund it, and you drive it. We should never have to tell you to invest in your team.
• Pragmatic and data-driven. You welcome rigorous debate, explain the rationale behind technical trade-offs, and tackle problems head-on with commercial awareness.
• Grounded in the customer. You are curious about the problems our customers face so that technical priorities stay tied to user needs.
• Resilient in ambiguity. You manage competing priorities and do not give up when the path is unclear.
• Transferable domain experience. Scaled a multi-tenant, high-volume data and API platform through rapid growth in any industry.
• Relevant experience. Exposure to marketplaces, ecommerce, or the Amazon SP-API ecosystem is valuable, though not required, as sharp leaders pick it up in months.

Benefits Why join MerchantSpring?

• Own the function: How we build, what gets prioritised, and where we place our bets are yours to call and defend.
• A leadership seat: You have a direct line to the CEO and a hand in company strategy and direction.
• Hard problems, high stakes: Your work directly shapes the platform’s reliability, scalability and cost, and therefore our competitive advantage and commercial outcomes.
• Build a lasting legacy: Define the architecture, culture, processes and standards that guide engineering as we scale, and lead a talented team within a modern, cloud-native stack.
• Stability with autonomy: Be part of a profitable, self-funded business scaling on its own terms. Experience the freedom of a startup without the runway anxiety.
• Travel: Occasional trips to Melbourne a few of times a year, with colleagues including the CEO and co-founder travelling to KL for face-to-face time. You will need to be able to travel to Australia, personally and with a valid visa.