Head of Engineering – Forma Design Tools

26WD97000

Help shape how cities are designed

We're looking for a Head of Engineering to lead engineering in the Forma Design Tools Product Area. Reporting to the Director of Engineering, you'll own engineering operations and team effectiveness across the squads that build the connected, outcome-driven foundations powering every Forma product.

As Head of Engineering for Forma Design Tools, you'll be accountable for ensuring teams deliver against ambitious commitments, operate efficiently, and keep a stable, reliable platform in the hands of both end users and the product teams building on top of it. You'll partner with Product, Design, and the Software Architect to turn strategy into shipped outcomes — without losing alignment or quality as we scale. This is a player-coach role: leadership with real technical engagement. You're not far from the code, and you're not far from the team.

Your work will enable architects, planners, and developers to discover smarter, more sustainable solutions and gain meaningful insights into their projects — and will enable the teams building Forma's design applications to move faster by composing capabilities rather than rebuilding them.

About us

We're on a mission to help design better cities.

With 90% of future population growth expected in urban areas—and construction responsible for around 40% of global CO₂ emissions—the AEC industry must evolve. Our cloud-based Autodesk Forma platform helps users evaluate design choices based on environmental impact, living quality (sun, daylight, noise), and project feasibility. We started as Spacemaker in Norway and became part of Autodesk in 2020.

Learn more about Autodesk Forma here.

How we work

We work in small, empowered teams with a high degree of trust and ownership. We strongly believe in servant leadership and team accountability. In each team, software engineers work closely together with product managers and designers. To learn more about our way of working, read through our tech and product core beliefs.

About Forma Design Tools

Forma Design Tools builds the platform that makes every Forma product better. We own the shared capabilities — Scenarios, analysis, collaboration, contextual data, and the ecosystem layer — that Forma's design applications and third-party developers build on. When we get it right, teams stop rebuilding the same foundations and start compounding each other's work.

Two promises guide how we work:

• Learn once, use everywhere — for end users, the same tools and experiences appear across Forma products

• Build once, works everywhere — for consuming teams, each capability is self-contained, composable, and operates on the same data foundation

We serve three distinct consumers — end users, consuming product teams, and third parties building on Forma — and we treat each as a customer, not a stakeholder.

The organisation

The Product Area is led by the Director of Product for Design Tools. The Director owns the product strategy and execution across the Product Area.

You will lead the engineers, currently 40 engineers including Engineering Managers, and the team is growing. The role comes with the autonomy to shape the organisation: how it is structured, how it hires, and how it operates.

Responsibilities

As Head of Engineering for Forma Design Tools, you will use your leadership, technical judgment, and organizational skill to drive outcomes across multiple squads. In this role, you will:

People Leadership & Team Health

• Directly manage and coach Engineering Managers; keep them empowered and effective

• Own org structure, staffing, and hiring decisions; recruit engineers to fill open headcount

• Actively drive people allocations across squads

• Ensure teams are well-supported, motivated, and operating effectively

• Monitor team health, workload, and engagement, and intervene early when needed

• Identify capability needs and turn them into hiring, development, or structural actions

Technical Health & Direction

• Partner with the Software Architect on technical direction and cross-team alignment

• Maintain clear technical contracts with consuming Product Areas — APIs, SDKs, and integration boundaries — so consuming teams can move fast without surprises

• Own tech debt prioritization and execution — ensuring the right debt is paid down at the right time

• Support Tech Leads in balancing delivery pressure with long-term system health

• Identify key areas of technical risk and ensure they are understood and managed

• Champion Developer Experience and engineering practices that compound over time

Delivery & Operational Excellence

• Own Product Area delivery against committed outcomes

• Run the operating cadence: planning, flow, release management, and cross-team coordination

• Make explicit, transparent trade-offs between speed and quality

• Embed security and compliance standards in how teams operate — making them a baseline, not an afterthought

• Own system stability and incident response — and drive performance, scalability, and observability as operational standards across teams

• Maintain and gradually improve engineering quality across teams

Platform & Ecosystem Delivery

• Ensure capabilities are delivered as composable building blocks that work across consuming applications

• Support squads in running their capabilities as products with clear contracts for internal and third-party consumers

• Drive adoption of shared foundations so capabilities compound rather than fragment

• Partner with consuming Product Areas to keep integrations healthy and feedback loops short

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner closely with Product and Design leadership for Forma Design Tools

• Strengthen ways of working across Product, Engineering, and Design

• Ensure alignment with the Forma Design Apps Product Area and across Autodesk

Desired profile

• Operates with a high degree of autonomy and clarity in ambiguous situations

• Drives delivery, people, and organizational decisions across multiple squads

• Combines strong engineering judgment with sound leadership instincts

• Brings others along by coaching Engineering Managers and Tech Leads

• Continuously identifies areas for improvement in how we work and delivers change

• Collaborates across functions to align engineering with product and user outcomes

• Motivated by our mission and focused on delivering meaningful outcomes at scale

What will help you succeed in this role

• Typically 10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership including experience managing Engineering Managers — though we value equivalent experience and non-linear paths equally

• Track record delivering cloud-based platform or shared-capability products at scale

• Experience coaching and growing Engineering Managers and Tech Leads

• Experience treating internal product teams as customers — running platforms as products with clear contracts and feedback loops

• Proven ability to make transparent delivery and quality trade-offs under pressure

• Strong engineering background, respected by the team for your technical depth

• Strong collaboration and communication skills across disciplines and seniority levels

You might also bring

• Experience with APIs, SDKs, extension frameworks, or ecosystem platforms

• Background in AEC/BIM, geospatial/3D, simulation, or AI-assisted product surfaces (MCP, agents, RAG)

• Experience scaling shared data layers or composable-capability architectures

• Experience with SOC2 or similar compliance programs

• Experience working in cross-functional, international product teams

Why join us

• Work on real-world problems with measurable environmental impact

• Lead the engineering behind the platform layer that makes every Forma product better

• Shape how a growing ecosystem — internal teams and third parties — builds on Forma

• Collaborate with experienced engineers, product managers, and designers across disciplines

• Competitive compensation, pension, and benefits

We believe the best work happens when people feel safe to contribute fully — regardless of background, identity, or how they got here. We're committed to building a team where different perspectives are genuinely valued, where work and life can coexist, and where everyone can do their best work. We encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't match every requirement listed — curiosity, empathy, and a growth mindset matter just as much to us.

Learn More

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Salary transparency

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Diversity & Belonging
We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/diversity-and-belonging

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