HAPPY HOWL®
Director of Technology
Remote (US) · Full-Time
**About Happy Howl**
We started Happy Howl because we believe dogs deserve better — and better
wasn't available. Not from the legacy brands cutting corners with feed-grade
ingredients, not from the fresh players who can't survive a pantry shelf, and
not from anyone willing to accept that the industry standard for pet nutrition
is "good enough."
We're on a mission to help dogs live longer, healthier lives. Every recipe is
100% human-grade, single-source animal protein, zero preservatives, backed by
real science and formulated by a PhD nutritionist who obsesses over every
ingredient. Our food is shelf-stable for two years without refrigeration —
real, whole-food nutrition that's ready whenever and wherever your dog is.
That combination doesn't exist anywhere else.
But we're more than a product. We work hand-in-hand with rescue organizations
across the country because we believe every dog deserves a great meal — not
just the ones who already found their forever home. Giving back isn't a
marketing campaign for us. It's why we exist.
We're backed by some of the most respected investors in consumer and pet, and
we're building the team that scales this brand past $100M in annual revenue.
This is not a slow build. We move fast, we think big, and we hold ourselves to
a standard most companies talk about but never actually live.
The people here are energetic, passionate, thoughtful, and intentional. We're
a team in every sense of the word — we win together, we solve hard problems
together, we care for one another and we're building something that genuinely
matters. If you want to do the best work of your career at a company that
refuses to settle, Happy Howl is where you belong.
**About the Role**
This is a unique role at the intersection of technology leadership and AI-
first operations. You'll be building an AI-powered force multiplier that makes
every department at Happy Howl dramatically more effective. You’ll own the
entire technical infrastructure while deploying AI systems that automate,
accelerate, and improve everything from product to marketing to fulfillment to
finance.
**How We Think About This Role**
Happy Howl doesn't have a traditional engineering org, and we're not building
one. We're building something different — an AI-first technology function
where one exceptional technical leader and a small team of AI implementation
engineers become the force multiplier for the entire company.
Today, we use Claude extensively at the executive level for strategic
analysis, financial modeling, content development, and operational decision-
making. But what we don't have is someone who takes that same philosophy and
deploys it as working infrastructure across every department — automations
that run without anyone thinking about them, tools that make a 25-person team
operate like a 60-person team, and a data layer that gives every leader real-
time visibility into what matters.
That's what this role builds.
You won't be managing a 10-person engineering team or sitting in sprint
planning meetings. You'll be the technical architect of a company that bets
heavily on AI as an organizational advantage — and you'll work directly with
the CEO, CFO, CGO, and every department head to identify the highest-leverage
problems and ship solutions fast.
**What You'll Do**
_AI & Automation_
Deploy AI-powered systems across every function of the business. Customer
service: intelligent ticket routing, automated response drafting, cancellation
intervention workflows. Marketing: automated ad performance reporting,
creative asset tagging, campaign analytics pipelines. Operations: inventory
burn rate alerts, fulfillment SLA monitoring, co-manufacturer production
tracking dashboards. Finance: automated board reporting data pulls, cohort
analysis refreshes, cash flow forecasting models. You'll find the manual
process, understand the business logic behind it, and replace it with
something that runs itself.
_Technical Infrastructure_
Own the full technology stack — Shopify storefront, subscriptions, Klaviyo
email/SMS, data pipelines, analytics, and every integration that connects
them. You're the single accountable owner for site uptime, page speed,
checkout conversion, and data integrity. You own the technology infrastructure
and ongoing performance.
_Cross-Functional Systems Building_
Sit in on leadership meetings across departments — not as a passive observer,
but as the person who hears a strategic priority and immediately starts
thinking about how to systematize it. When the Head of Retention says
subscription cancellations spike at day 45, you build the intervention
trigger. When the CFO needs LTV/CAC by customer type updated weekly instead of
monthly, you build the pipeline. When the CGO wants to test 50 ad variations
instead of 10, you build the workflow that makes it possible.
_Long-Term Team Building_
Once proven out, hire and lead 1–2 AI Implementation Engineers who report to
you and serve every department through a dotted-line service model. You set
the standards, define the toolchain, and build the playbook for how AI gets
deployed at Happy Howl. Every automation gets documented, every system gets a
runbook, and the AI layer becomes institutional knowledge — not tribal
knowledge.
_Emerging Technology_
Stay on the absolute forefront of AI development. New model releases, new tool
capabilities, new paradigms for how AI agents interact with business systems —
you're the person who evaluates them the week they ship and has a
recommendation on our Slack by Friday. We don't want someone who's aware of
what's happening in AI. We want someone who's obsessed with it the way we're
obsessed with dog nutrition.
**What We're Looking For**
You've been building software for 5+ years, but the last 2–3 have
fundamentally changed how you work. You live inside AI tools and use them to
ship real systems, not prototypes. Technical skill is the entry ticket. What
actually matters to us:
You own outcomes, not activity. You measure yourself by what shipped and what
it did for the business. You move with urgency and judgment — we require both.
When something breaks, you say so fast and bring a recommendation with it. You
embrace the underdog spirit. We're not Google. You see a 25-person team as a
feature, not a limitation, because you know one exceptional builder with the
right tools can outship an entire department at a company ten times our size.
You've lived that, not just believed it. You elevate everyone around you. You
solve problems with people, not around them.
You document everything. You reject "good enough" when it threatens quality.
You deliver work you're proud to put your name on, especially when no one is
watching. You are locked in, not clocked in. We don't track hours. We track
ownership, urgency, quality, and follow-through. You rise to the moment when
it matters because you understand what's at stake. And you genuinely believe
AI changes everything — not in the thought-leadership-post sense, but in the
"I rebuilt how my last company operated and I want to do it again" sense.
**Nice to Have**
Experience in DTC, CPG, or subscription businesses. Familiarity with Shopify,
Klaviyo, Stay.ai, Google Analytics, and Meta/TikTok ad platforms. Prior
experience building AI-powered automations for customer service, marketing, or
operations workflows. Data engineering background — ETL pipelines,
warehousing, BI tools. Experience evaluating and deploying AI agents or multi-
step AI workflows in production environments.
**What We Offer**
Competitive base salary ($160K–$180K) plus a meaningful annual bonus
opportunity and equity in a company scaling toward $100M+ in revenue. You'll
be the first technical leadership hire — this isn't joining a team, it's
building the function. You report directly to the CEO with full autonomy over
technical decisions, toolchain, and hiring. Remote-friendly with the
flexibility to work from anywhere in the US. And the chance to build an AI-
first organization from the ground up at a company where the leadership team
already believes in what you're building, not one where you have to convince
them first.