Hire the best Engineering Directors in Berlin matched in minutes from 15,000 CVs with the power of AI.
Bring in senior engineering leadership for platform rebuilds, delivery recovery, team scaling, and cross-functional alignment. Strong matches know how to set tech direction, improve execution, and keep product and engineering moving together. Fast, precise matching with vetted, available freelancers.
About the role
What they lead
An Engineering Director sets direction for teams and delivery. They connect product goals with technical decisions, remove bottlenecks, and keep engineering work predictable. Companies hire them to stabilize execution, improve quality, and lead through change. Common work includes:
- guiding engineering managers and senior engineers
- shaping architecture and delivery standards
- aligning roadmaps with product and business priorities
- improving hiring, team structure, and ways of working
Typical work
This role often steps in when a company needs more than hands-on engineering leadership. The work can include org design, delivery recovery, platform modernization, and support for a new CTO or head of product. In Berlin, this is common in SaaS, fintech, mobility, e-commerce, and growth-stage tech teams that need senior leadership without a long hiring process.
Core skills
A strong Engineering Director combines technical judgment with clear leadership. They should be able to talk to engineers, product managers, and executives without losing the thread.
- software architecture and system trade-offs
- delivery planning, prioritization, and risk management
- coaching engineering managers and senior talent
- hiring process design and team development
- clear communication across technical and business teams
Tools and focus
The exact stack depends on the company, but strong candidates usually understand modern software delivery environments. That can include cloud platforms, CI/CD, observability, incident handling, and agile planning. They do not need to own every tool day to day. They do need to know how to build an engineering setup that is maintainable, measurable, and ready for growth.
When to bring one in
Bring in a freelancer when the team needs leadership now, not after a long permanent search. This is useful during restructuring, product resets, major releases, and transitions between founders and professional management. It also helps when the current team has senior engineers but lacks a clear decision maker. Remote collaboration works well for strategy and delivery oversight, while Berlin-based on-site work can help with workshops, leadership alignment, and sensitive change processes.
What strong directors deliver
The best professionals make the organization easier to run. They create clarity on ownership, reduce delivery friction, and raise the quality bar without slowing the team down. You should expect concrete decisions, calm leadership, and visible progress in how the engineering team operates. In Berlin, many companies also value strong English, with German useful for internal alignment and stakeholder work.
Meet FRATCH Engineering Directors
Thomas Übermeier
Innovative Fintech & Blockchain Leader · Head Of Engineering
Last position:
Head of Engineering - Midnight at IOG / Midnight
IOG (IOHK), is one of the world's pre-eminent blockchain infrastructure research and engineering companies.
- Converted a lingering R&D project into a cohesive, production-ready testnet; built and scaled the 35-member engineering team (Core, QA, SRE) to achieve this goal.
- Defined strategic direction and aligned technology development with business objectives as a key member of the leadership.
- Optimized software development processes and implemented agile methodologies, enhancing operational efficiency and code security.
- Delivered projects in a fast-paced startup environment through effective project management and resource allocation.
André Görst
IT Consulting Project Management / Engineering Subproject Management
Last position:
IT Consulting Project Management / Engineering Subproject Management at T-Systems (on assignment for government agencies)
- Projects for federal networks (NdB).
- CR management, EoL change requests, design and documentation according to ITSCM.
- Data center planning.
- Project management and engineering subproject management.
- Software development for virtual server environments according to BSI.
Clemens Berlin
Director of Engineering
Last position:
Director of Engineering at SIDES GmbH
- Leading engineering organization of 45 engineers across 8 teams while serving dual role as Head of Backend
- Addressed critical organizational challenges including siloed departments, lack of engineering processes, and absence of technical strategy
- Executed comprehensive engineering leadership in people management, organizational design, and strategic planning
- Drove platform modernization including migration to a new Python backend, implementation of React micro-frontends, and transition to event-driven architecture
- Established engineering excellence framework through Architecture Decision Records, RFC processes, and comprehensive technology roadmapping
- Transformed engineering into integrated business partner by building collaboration channels with Product Management and Customer Operations teams
- Reduced escaped bugs by 50% and increased test coverage in legacy systems
- Achieved 100% Q2 roadmap delivery through realistic planning and improved estimation accuracy
- Introduced AI engineering strategy, establishing policies, providing tools, and training team on prompt engineering and agentic workflows
- Saved €10k monthly through infrastructure optimization including AWS IoT to RabbitMQ migration and decommissioning legacy systems
- Improved team engagement from 60% to 100% survey participation and enhanced eNPS scores among team leaders
- Built high-performance team through strategic hiring of Python, Go, and frontend engineers and improved onboarding
- Implementing transition to self-organized cross-functional teams
Nico Hirsing
Project Manager Engineering/CapEx/Process Engineering
Last position:
Project Manager Engineering/CapEx/Process Engineering at Sanofi
- Planning, URS/requirements and stakeholder management for a new Greenfield QC building 4000 m²
- Project realization
Jad Nohra
Engineering Director (Hands-on)
Last position:
Software Developer at Side Project
- Vram.run: Rust, TypeScript, HF Inference API with 19 providers, 220+ HW configs, and 30+ cloud GPUs. Search a model to see which API providers serve it, which GPUs can run it locally (and how fast), and what cloud rental would cost. Or search your hardware and see what fits. Also includes a Rust CLI.
- Psychotron: JavaScript, Web Audio API, AudioWorklet, Canvas 2D. Front-end for flash fiction audiobook with Web Audio DSP chain featuring pitch-shifting, 12-voice chorus, flanger, 13-band EQ, and convolver reverb. Includes a 2D canvas effect morphing engine and synchronized teleprompter.
- RecentWork: Swift, macOS, FSEvents, launchd. macOS daemon that watches project directories and maintains a flat folder of symlinks to recently modified files. Homebrew installable.
- Mini-llm: Bash, macOS, launchd, Ollama, llama.cpp, MLX, Open WebUI. Single command that turns a Mac Mini into a headless AI server.
- ThatSlop: JavaScript. Chrome/Firefox extension for AI content detection on LinkedIn and Twitter.
- Smux: Bash, tmux. Human-friendly tmux wrapper that is Homebrew installable.
- Learn Rust Course: Rust. Course on Rust’s memory model for C++ programmers, written from experience of transitioning from C++ to Rust at Irreducible.
Jurgen Wiehan
Director of Engineering
Last position:
Director of Engineering at Wunderflats
- Reporting directly to the CEO.
- Responsible for all things in the engineering space including software engineering, architecture and quality assurance.
- Led a team of around 25 cross functional team members including frontend, backend and fullstack engineers.
- Aligned engineering strategies with organisation strategy through clearly identifiable OKRs.
- Introduced Team Topologies and Scrum, ensuring less hand-offs between teams and improving their efficiencies which resulted in more impactful solutions for our customers.
- Lead the technology due diligence process for an M&A decision.
- Spearheaded the re-architecture of our product from monolith to microservices, reducing technical debt and enabling expansion into new markets.
- Managed a budget of around €2m, optimising costs by introducing SaaS solutions and replacing homegrown systems.
- Negotiated vendor contracts, reducing costs by at least 10% and improving service delivery.
- Set clear expectations and goals for engineers ensuring their continued growth within the organisation.
- Technology stacks included React, Node.js, MongoDB and GCP.
Volker Krause
Head of Engineering
Last position:
Head of Engineering at Infoniqa
- Led engineering execution: roadmap planning, capacity alignment, risk management, dependencies, and delivery tracking.
- Consolidated multiple payroll product lines into a unified SaaS platform on Dynamics 365 Business Central, enabling scalable post-merger operations and reducing operational complexity across the portfolio.
- Restructured engineering and product teams in a remote-first setting across Germany, Austria and Poland, consisting of five cross-functional units: compliance/enabling, platform, DevOps and two stream-aligned teams with total FTE depending on phase of reorganisation.
- Rebuilt the mid-level leadership layer and mentored engineering leaders, establishing a leadership pipeline and strengthening architectural decision-making across teams for scalable growth, delivery ownership and predictability.
- Designed platform foundations and system boundaries using Team Topologies aligned structures, enabling scalable ownership, clear interfaces and parallel development across distributed teams.
- Spearheaded AI transformation by implementing AI-assisted SDLC practices using SpecKit and GitHub Actions for automated, executable specifications, while delivering agentic product capabilities by securely exposing platform data and services to AI agents and copilots via RAG-based retrieval pipelines and MCP-style extensions.
- Drove modularisation of tightly coupled legacy logic into independently deployable services, improving maintainability, testability and architectural clarity while preserving continuity through targeted, low-risk extraction rather than full rewrites.
- Established observability, CI/CD and DevOps governance as platform capabilities, increasing automated compliance gates from 25% to 75% and improving deployment cadence by 40% across 15+ product versions.
- Improved operational resilience using DORA-aligned practices (lead time ↓50%, SaaS MTTR ↓85%), strengthening reliability and reducing support overhead.
- Coordinated engineering recovery for the German payroll platform during a company-wide P0 ransomware incident; restored platform continuity within 72h, validated data integrity, and rolled out hardened runbooks and automated recovery playbooks.
- Responsible for budget compliance and cost oversight in Engineering, with limited P&L responsibility and participating in the annual COGS/OPEX/CAPEX planning cycle.
Discover over 15,000 top freelancers
Engineering Directors statistics
Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.
Experience
26 years
Position duration
3.5 years
Positions per freelancer
17
Top business areas
Information Technology, Product Development, Project Management
Top industries
Information Technology, Education, Healthcare
Certification focus areas
Human Resources, Information Technology, Project Management
Bachelor's degree or higher
57%
Master's degree or higher
14%
Certifications per freelancer
4
Most common languages
German, English, Dutch
Speak two or more languages
100%
Daily Rate Distribution
The chart shows how the daily rates of freelancers in this role are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows how many freelancers charge within that range. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
Average rates for Engineering Directors & Seniority distribution
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
Frequently Asked Questions
Want to know more? Check out our simple guide about FRATCH
A top freelance Engineering Director leads engineering direction, delivery, and team health without taking a permanent seat in the org. They may help with architecture choices, management structure, hiring plans, or a recovery plan for a struggling roadmap. The focus is on practical leadership and clear decisions.
Bring in this role when the problem is broader than one team or one delivery stream. An Engineering Director is the right fit when several teams need alignment, when senior managers need coaching, or when the company needs a stronger bridge between product and engineering. A senior manager usually stays closer to one team or one area of execution.
Look for solid technical judgment, leadership depth, and the ability to explain trade-offs clearly. A strong candidate should have experience with architecture, delivery management, hiring, and coaching managers. Just as important is their ability to stay calm when priorities change or delivery slips.
A Engineering Director usually focuses on execution, team leadership, and operational health, while a CTO owns broader technology strategy and external vision. In smaller companies the lines can blur, but the director role is usually more hands-on with org structure and delivery. If you need someone to run the engineering function day to day, this role is often the better fit.
Define the main problem first: delivery recovery, org design, leadership coaching, or technical alignment. Then agree on decision rights, stakeholders, and the expected outputs, such as a roadmap review, team structure proposal, or hiring plan. A clear scope helps the Engineering Director move fast and avoid overlap with product or operations.
Both can work, depending on the situation. Remote is usually enough for strategy, coaching, and structured leadership work, while on-site time helps with sensitive discussions, workshops, and team resets. In Berlin, many companies use a hybrid setup to keep collaboration direct without making every meeting in person.
Berlin companies often bring in this role for scale-up challenges, platform modernization, and cross-functional delivery issues. It also fits product-led businesses that need stronger engineering leadership during growth or change. If the team is strong technically but lacks coordination, a freelance Engineering Director can add immediate structure.
Ask for examples of how they improved delivery, coached leaders, or resolved a difficult engineering problem. Strong answers are specific and show how they worked with product, operations, and executives, not just with engineers. References and a practical case discussion are often the best way to check fit.
The average hourly rate for Engineering Directors in Berlin is 140 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 1,121 € based on an 8-hour working day.
Of the freelancers working as Engineering Directors in Berlin, 57% hold at least a Bachelor's degree and 14% hold at least a Master's degree.
On average, freelancers working as Engineering Directors in Berlin have 26 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 3.5 years.
The most common languages among freelancers working as Engineering Directors in Berlin are German (100%), English (100%), and Dutch (29%).
The most common industries among freelancers working as Engineering Directors in Berlin are Information Technology (86%), Education (43%), and Healthcare (43%).
The most common business areas among freelancers working as Engineering Directors in Berlin are Information Technology (86%), Product Development (86%), and Project Management (86%).
FRATCH Engineering Directors main locations
Our freelancers and interim experts are at home across the DACH region — available on-site in the major business hubs or fully remote. Choose a location to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
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Philipp Thomaschewski
FRATCH CEO
