Lead and mentor a distributed US team of 13 engineers across AI/ML, cloud backend, frontend, and DevOps. Conduct regular 1:1s, manage performance, support career development, and foster a high-trust, continuous-learning team culture. Drive the delivery cadence by proactively clearing blockers, planning milestones, and ensuring reliable execution. Champion engineering excellence, including modern CI/CD, cloud automation, AI assistance, code reviews, monitoring, and documentation.