Director, Software Engineering - NetGen Payroll

About Us

At Cast & Crew, we’ve empowered creativity and supported the global entertainment industry for decades. Together with our family of brands - Backstage, CAPS, Checks & Balances, Final Draft, Media Services, Sargent-Disc, and The TEAM Companies – we operate as a combined entertainment technology and services provider offering industry standard screenwriting accounting software, digital payroll products, data & reporting, and a host of creative tools.  The industry continues to move faster than ever, and the need for our expertise, our technology, and our people has never been greater.  We are a production’s best ally every step of the way. #OneCastOneCrew

Position Overview
We are seeking an innovative and experienced Director of Software Engineering to lead the development of our next-generation, AI-powered unified payroll platform. This role requires a strategic thinker with deep technical expertise and a passion for building scalable, intelligent systems that transform payroll operations—especially in the complex landscape of entertainment labor contracts.
You will lead architecture, platform engineering, and team development while driving the integration of AI/ML, IDP, and automation technologies to intelligently ingest and operationalize labor union agreements, pay scales, and rules.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & AI/IDP Integration

• Design and implement scalable, event-driven microservices using .NET Core and AWS.
• Integrate Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) capabilities to extract, structure, and manage union contracts, scale rates, pay rules, and deduction clauses.
• Drive adoption of AI/ML, NLP, and Agentic AI for smarter payroll decisioning and compliance automation.
• Build secure and high-throughput data pipelines using PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Redis, and Elasticsearch.

Platform Engineering & Infrastructure

• Develop cloud-native backend systems with a strong emphasis on scalability, performance, and uptime.
• Implement event-streaming architectures with Kafka or AWS SQS to ensure reliable, asynchronous processing.
• Ensure system resilience, observability, and maintainability across distributed services.

Front-End, Automation & User Experience

• Partner with UI/UX teams to deliver modular and responsive front-end applications using React.
• Integrate RPA tools to automate repetitive processes such as payroll adjustments, rate validations, and deduction reconciliations.
• Build tools that allow business teams to review, audit, and manage AI-parsed union contract data.

Leadership, Strategy & Collaboration

• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team, cultivating a culture of innovation, agility, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with Product, Architecture, and QA teams to prioritize and deliver high-value features.
• Drive evaluation and adoption of emerging AI, IDP, and intelligent automation platforms through technical proof-of-concepts.
• Ensure alignment with labor compliance and legal stakeholders on rule ingestion accuracy and traceability.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.
• Proven experience with .NET Core, C#, and distributed microservices architecture.
• Strong knowledge of IDP technologies for structured extraction from complex, semi-structured documents (PDFs, scanned contracts).
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML, NLP, and semantic search in production environments.
• Expertise in event-driven architecture and messaging platforms like Kafka or AWS SQS.
• Familiarity with ingesting and operationalizing labor union agreements, including pay scales, deductions, and rules.
• Strong database design skills with PostgreSQL and NoSQL stores such as DynamoDB.
• Experience with Redis, Elasticsearch, and secure API development.
• Working knowledge of React and modern DevOps pipelines.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in building or scaling payroll, finance, or labor compliance platforms.
• Familiarity with domain-driven design (DDD), rule engines, and business logic orchestration.
• Experience deploying intelligent document processing platforms like AWS Textract, Azure Form Recognizer, or Google Document AI.
• Exposure to legal tech, labor relations, or unionized workforce systems.
• Entertainment/media industry experience is a strong plus.

Special Work Conditions    

• Sedentary – Involves sitting most of the time but may involve walking or standing for brief periods of time. Some positions may entail exerting up to 15 lbs. of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force to lift, carry, push, or pull.

Benefits 

Cast & Crew provides a comprehensive package of employee benefits including: Medical, Dental, Vision, PTO, health and wellness programs, employee discounts, and more! Note: Cast & Crew benefits are subject to eligibility requirements.

Cast & Crew is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive culture. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all individuals based on job-related qualifications and ability to perform a job, without regard to age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, disability, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship or marital status, and to maintain a non-discriminatory environment free from intimidation, harassment or bias based upon these grounds.

CA residents
Your personal information may be collected in connection with certain services provided by Cast & Crew or its affiliated companies.  A summary of your California privacy rights can be found at: https://www.castandcrew.com/privacy-policy/

Compensation is commensurate with various factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, qualifications, skills, training, licensure, certifications, geographic cost of labor, and other business and organizational needs. Compensation range for candidates in other locations may differ based on the cost of labor in that location. The compensation range for this position is: $180,000.00 - $230,000.00 per year.