About the Role

We're building a new team to own Radiant's internal data infrastructure, executive analytics, and AI capabilities. As the Technical Lead (Director), you'll set the technical direction for the team—architecting the data platform, owning the AI strategy, and ensuring we make the right build-vs-buy decisions.

This is a player-coach role. You'll lead technical direction and mentor engineers, but you'll also go hands-on when needed. You'll own the AI vendor evaluation process, which is critical given our ITAR/EAR security requirements—standard AI tools don't work out of the box, and we need someone who can navigate the landscape and find compliant solutions.

What You'll Do

• Set technical direction: Define the architecture for our data platform (Databricks, Fivetran, dbt) and AI tooling; make build-vs-buy decisions

• Own AI strategy: Evaluate and select AI platforms (chatbot, enterprise search, specialized tools) that meet security requirements; lead RAG evaluation in H2

• Lead technical delivery: Ensure the ION-Ramp integration, dashboards, and AI tools are built correctly; hands-on when needed

• Mentor engineers: Set the technical bar for hiring; develop the DevOps and Data Platform Engineers on the team

• Interface with SWE: Coordinate with the Software Engineering team on shared Databricks infrastructure; ensure operational and engineering workloads coexist

• Navigate security: Work with IT/Security to ensure all technical decisions meet ITAR/EAR compliance requirements

What We're Looking For

Required

• 10+ years of software or data engineering experience, including hands-on AI/ML work

• Deep understanding of the AI landscape—you can evaluate vendor tools, understand RAG architectures, and advise on build-vs-buy tradeoffs

• Data platform architecture experience—you've designed and built systems on Databricks, Snowflake, or similar

• Strong technical leadership—you can set direction, mentor engineers, and interface effectively with non-technical stakeholders

• Hands-on ability—you're a player-coach who can write code when needed, not just draw diagrams

Preferred

• Background in hardware, aerospace, or defense—you understand manufacturing data, supply chain systems, and the complexity of physical product development

• Experience shipping AI products or building AI capabilities at a company (not just research)

• Experience with data integration tools (Fivetran, Airbyte, dbt)

• Experience in regulated environments (SOC 2, FedRAMP, ITAR)

• Familiarity with BI/analytics tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Databricks dashboards)

Why Join Radiant

• Mission: Clean energy that can go anywhere—few problems matter more

• Team: Work alongside exceptional people from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other top engineering organizations

• Compensation: Competitive compensation with equity

• Benefits: Health/dental/vision, 401(k), and flexible PTO

• Greenfield: You'll build the data and AI platform from scratch—your architecture decisions

• AI at the frontier: Evaluate and deploy AI in a high-security environment where standard solutions don't work

Additional Information

This position requires the ability to work in the United States and eligibility for access to export-controlled information under ITAR/EAR.

Benefits and Perks

• Stock: Substantial incentive stock plan for all full-time employees.

• Medical: 100% up to base silver level plan for employee + 50% dependents, offers up to Platinum plans.

• One Medical: Sponsored memberships for employees and their depe