Director, Engineering

Have you ever had that green-light feeling? When you hit every green light and the day just feels like magic. CLEAR's mission is to create frictionless experiences where every day has that feeling. With more than 30+ million passionate members and hundreds of partners around the world, CLEAR’s identity platform is transforming the way people live, work, and travel. Whether it’s at the airport, stadium, or right on your phone, CLEAR connects you to the things that make you, you - unlocking easier, more secure, and more seamless experiences - making them all feel like magic.

We are seeking a collaborative, strategic, and execution-focused engineering leader. As a Director of Engineering, you will oversee multiple teams building and scaling the platforms and products that power seamless, secure experiences for millions of CLEAR members. You’ll pair deep technical expertise with a members-first mindset, driving execution across engineering, product, and business stakeholders. The right candidate has a proven record of scaling resilient systems, cultivating high-performing teams, and shaping technical strategy in fast-paced environments.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead and grow multiple engineering teams, ensuring career growth, mentorship, and a culture of technical excellence.
• Set technical and organizational strategy, aligning roadmaps with business goals and ensuring execution at scale.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Security, and Business leaders to define priorities and deliver measurable member value.
• Drive engineering and operational excellence, embedding metrics, best practices, and continuous improvement across teams.
• Scale platforms and systems to meet the needs of a rapidly growing user base ecosystem.
• Provide technical and architectural leadership, ensuring teams make sound decisions that balance speed, scalability, and safety.
• Foster transparency and alignment, enabling cross-team collaboration and accountability through effective communication and planning.

What You’re Great At:

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with 7+ years leading teams and 3+ years managing managers.
• Strong track record of building and guiding multiple teams or organizations delivering complex, distributed systems.
• Expertise in software development, architecture, and cloud-native system design.
• Skilled communicator who can translate technical strategy into business impact for executives and stakeholders.
• Proven ability to deliver scalable, highly available platforms that balance innovation with operational rigor.
• Experienced at driving organizational alignment, scaling engineering processes, and setting standards for excellence.
• Passionate about building teams, nurturing talent, and creating an environment where engineers thrive.
• Curious, adaptable, and committed to continuous learning and improvement.

How You’ll be Rewarded:

At CLEAR, we help YOU move forward - because when you’re at your best, we’re at our best. You’ll work with talented team members motivated by our mission of making experiences safer and easier. Our offices are bright and energetic with an open concept and plenty of conference rooms and casual co-working spaces. We also offer catered lunches every day and have fully stocked kitchens. Outside of the office, we invest in your well-being and learning & development with stipends and reimbursement programs.

We offer holistic total rewards, including comprehensive healthcare plans, family-building benefits (fertility and adoption/surrogacy support), flexible time off, annual wellness stipend, free OneMedical memberships for you and your dependents, a CLEAR Plus membership, and a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match. The base salary range for this role is $225,000-$275,000, depending on levels of skills and experience.

The base salary range represents the low and high end of CLEAR’s salary range for this position. Salaries will vary depending on various factors which include, but are not limited to location, education, skills, experience and performance. The range listed is just one component of CLEAR’s total compensation package for employees and other rewards may include annual bonuses, commission, Restricted Stock Units.

CLEAR provides reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities or protected needs. Please let us know if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include, but are not limited to, time off, extra breaks, making a change to the application process or work procedures, policy exceptions, providing documents in an alternative format, live captioning or using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

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