Sr. Director Licensing and Accounts (San Mateo)

Senior Director, Licensing & Accounts EngineeringAbout the RoleA highly scaled, global technology organization is seeking a Senior Director of Licensing & Accounts Engineering to lead the transformation of critical backend platforms that support customer accounts, licensing, access, and entitlement systems.This role sits at the center of a complex product ecosystem and will own the technical roadmap for systems that determine customer identity, account access, licensing rules, and product entitlements across multiple products and services.The ideal candidate is a deeply technical engineering leader with strong backend architecture experience, especially in Java-based systems, shared services, integrations, and legacy platform modernization. This person must be able to simplify highly complex systems, influence senior technical stakeholders, and lead a critical engineering group through transformation.Key ResponsibilitiesOwn the architecture and modernization strategy for licensing and account platforms.Lead transformation of multiple critical Java backend components.Simplify complex integrations across product lines, customer-facing systems, and internal platforms.Design scalable and reusable licensing, account, and entitlement frameworks.Establish and drive a long-term technical roadmap for backend shared services.Partner closely with product, architecture, and engineering leaders on strategy and execution.Guide design decisions to reduce system coupling and improve platform reuse.Provide technical leadership, architectural review, and mentorship to senior engineers.Lead and develop a mid-sized engineering organization supporting highly critical systems.Act as a change agent by challenging legacy systems, assumptions, and technical practices.Ideal BackgroundSenior engineering leadership experience in backend platform, shared services, account systems, licensing, entitlement, identity, or large-scale product infrastructure.Strong Java/backend systems expertise.Experience modernizing complex legacy systems.Background leading integration-heavy architectures across multiple products or business units.Experience managing and influencing teams of approximately 20–25+ engineers.Ability to define technical roadmaps and drive architectural simplification.Strong balance of hands-on technical credibility and senior leadership presence.Must-Have SkillsJava backend systemsPlatform architecture and modernizationLicensing, accounts, entitlements, identity, or shared services experienceComplex integration architectureTechnical roadmap ownershipExperience simplifying legacy systemsLeadership of senior engineers and engineering managersStrong cross-functional influenceNice-to-Have SkillsLicensing and entitlement platform experienceCustomer account platform experienceReusable platform/service framework designCloud modernization experienceExperience with legally or commercially constrained systemsHigh-scale consumer or SaaS platform experienceWhat Success Looks LikeIn the first 6–12 months, this leader will be expected to:Define a clear modernization roadmap for licensing and account platforms.Reduce system complexity and redundant integration points.Improve scalability and reusability across backend services.Strengthen technical ownership across the engineering team.Build trust with product, architecture, and executive stakeholders.Establish a more future-ready platform foundation.Compensation & LocationBase salary: $230,000–$280,000, with some flexibilityAnnual bonus: 30%Equity: RSUs, flexible depending on candidate levelTotal compensation: approximately $500,000 at the top endLocation: Mountain View, CA preferred; Tempe, AZ may also be consideredHybrid expectation: minimum 3 days/week onsite, ideally 4–5 days