Technical Director (Temp to Hire)

Instrument is a digitally native design and technology company built to help brands unlock their full potential. Since 2005, our team of makers, thinkers, and storytellers has partnered with leading brands like Google, Nike, Uber, ŌURA, and Eventbrite to craft digital experiences that create impact and drive results.

Unlike traditional agencies, we don’t just design—we build. Our work lives at the intersection of taste and technology, powered by curiosity, thoughtful curation, and a commitment to delivering the most fitting solution for every brief. We bring this to life across three core offerings: Brand, Marketing, and Product.

As a member of our freelance network, you’ll collaborate with our teams to bring bold ideas to life—whether launching new brands, building digital products, or shaping experiences that move people. We welcome collaborators from all backgrounds and experiences who share our curiosity, creativity, and care for craft.

We believe great work comes from diverse perspectives and shared purpose. If you’re passionate about learning, experimenting, and making work that matters, we’d love to hear from you.

The Project: We are developing a highly complex, stateful, multi-agent simulation engine driven by generative AI. This is a greenfield project exploring new forms of non-linear, narrative-based user interaction at scale. Unlike typical stateless web apps, this system requires a dynamic, real-time frontend that can handle persistent "memory" and evolving session states for thousands of concurrent users. We are building an architecture where multiple AI agents orchestrate complex logic on the backend, and the frontend must elegantly reflect that state and latency to the user.

The Role: You will serve as the Technical Director, responsible for driving the technical vision, quality, and execution of this project. While this is a brand-new application, you won't be starting from a completely blank slate. Our architecture team has spent the last 10 weeks establishing a robust backend foundation, defining core services, and proving out the initial generative AI architecture. You will be stepping in at a pivotal moment to take the helm just as the full engineering team (Backend, Frontend, and AI Engineers) ramps up. Your focus will be on guiding this team, scaling the established foundation, and driving the project to a successful, polished launch.

This engagement runs from 6/1–10/9 at 40 hours/week, with the intention to convert to full-time if it’s a strong mutual fit.

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What You'll Do

• Own and evolve the technical vision, building on an existing GCP architecture (Cloud Run, Firestore, Cloud SQL) and guiding integration with a modern Angular-based SPA
• Lead architectural decision-making across the stack, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability of a real-time, stateful system
• Drive delivery health by evaluating feasibility, identifying risks early, and shaping scope to support sustainable execution
• Mentor and unblock a senior, multi-disciplinary engineering team; actively participate in sprint planning, standups, retros, and architectural reviews
• Uphold code quality across backend and frontend systems, including state management, rendering performance, and accessibility standards
• Act as the technical bridge across Engineering, Design, Strategy, and Production—translating AI capabilities into actionable product and UX decisions
• Partner with clients and external teams as a senior technical advisor, clearly communicating complex systems and influencing direction
• Collaborate closely with the Executive Technical Director to ensure strong alignment across technical strategy and client partnership
• Establish best practices for AI-augmented engineering, guiding the use of tools like Gemini, Cursor, or Claude Code to accelerate development responsibly
• Apply deep expertise across Full-stack development, Systems Architecture, and GCP to scale a complex, distributed system

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience operating as a Technical Director, Principal Engineer, or Architect leading complex, multi-disciplinary teams
• Deep full-stack fluency, with the ability to guide frontend architecture (TypeScript, Angular/React/Vue) and backend systems (Python, async processing, distributed services)
• Strong expertise in JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python, with the ability to contribute across the stack when needed
• Advanced experience architecting and deploying systems on GCP, including containerized microservices, database design (SQL/NoSQL), and DevOps/IaC practices (Terraform)
• Experience bringing generative AI systems into production, with an understanding of latency, orchestration, and multi-agent architectures
• Solid foundation in security, deployment, monitoring, and systems operations at scale
• Ability to balance technical excellence with pragmatic decision-making to keep teams moving efficiently
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders and guide cross-functional collaboration
• Experience working within delivery frameworks, maintaining visibility into timelines, budgets, staffing, and technical risk
• Proficiency with modern frontend frameworks such as Angular (preferred), React, or Vue, with a strong grasp of complex state management
• Strong understanding of accessibility standards and frontend performance considerations
• Familiarity with generative AI technologies (LLMs, agentic systems) and modern AI-augmented engineering workflows
• A collaborative, low-ego leadership style with the ability to partner across disciplines and lead through ambiguity

Pay Range
The expected contract pay range for this role is $113-130 per hour (on a W-2)
 
The expected full time pay range for this position is $150,000 - $180,000.
 
Both contract and full time compensation is determined by location, experience, and skillset.  We have three regional pay ranges that are adjusted for cost of living (US1 +15%, US2 +7.5%, US3 Base), *learn more about our pay philosophy and cost of living adjustments.

BenefitsContractors:
Benefits my be available in accordance with applicable law and company policy, including eligibility based on hours worked and duration of assignment. 
 
Full Time Employees:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401k with employer matching
• Unlimited PTO + company wide closures
• Work From Home and Wellbeing monthly stipend
• HSA Employer Contribution
• Professional Development Stipend
• Paid Parental Leave

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