Head of Engineering

Valis; United States; Remote; USD 300,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based bonus

Fast growth opportunity

Job summary

Valis is seeking a CTO-level engineering leader in the United States to own platform architecture, ingestion, storage, retrieval, and multi-tenant data access. You will write critical code, design secure data retention, and drive client-ready MCP integrations with major systems.

You will lead deployments, cost-control for token spend, and scale the data stack (Redshift/DuckDB) while shaping the engineering culture and hiring top talent. Fluency in English is essential.

Qualifications

• Must have 10+ years in software engineering with 4+ years in CTO/leadership roles at product companies or strong startups.
• Track record of zero-to-production systems with real users and real load; hands-on contributor.
• Deep hands-on experience running LLMs in production: agents, RAG, MCP, evals, and cost control.

Responsibilities

• Own platform architecture and engineering, from design to production.
• Write code where it matters; hands-on role, not only management.
• Design access control, data retention and GDPR compliance, and multi-tenancy.
• Build MCP servers and connectors to client systems (Slack, Google Workspace, Asana, HRIS, DWH, ERP).
• Lead deployments and be the final technical escalation point for your area.
• Manage cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP, Cloudflare), CI/CD, observability and security.
• Oversee data stack: warehouse (Redshift, DuckDB), ETL, large-scale migrations.
• Hire, develop, and retain engineers; foster an outcomes-driven culture.
• Leverage AI agents (Claude) as primary working tools.

Skills

10+ years experience

CTO/VP Engineering

LLMs in production

Backend architecture

Team leadership

English fluency

Cost control

Tools

AWS/GCP

CI/CD

Observability

Security

Redshift

DuckDB

ETL

MCP/Agentic tools

Job description

About us

We are Valis - a company building an institutional AI operating layer for mid-market companies: shared company memory, workflow mining and agentic automation.

Why this role exists

We are hiring a CTO-level engineering leader. We need a strong person, able to own a major part of the technology from architecture through production, build their own team, and speak with clients at C-suite level.

What you will do

Platform architecture and engineering

• Own the architecture of the org brain and personal brain: data ingestion, knowledge storage, retrieval, agents, and integrations with Claude and other LLMs.

• Write code yourself where it matters most. This is a hands-on role, not only a management one.

• Design access control so each user sees only data from their own area. You will also own data retention and deletion, GDPR compliance, and multi-tenancy.

• Build MCP servers and connectors to company systems (Slack, Google Workspace, Asana, HRIS, DWH, ERP), and bring them to the point where clients can use them self-service.

Deployments

• Lead complex technical conversations

• Own the technical side of deployments

• Turn what works for one client into a product, so the same custom work is not repeated.

• Be the final technical escalation point for your area.

Infrastructure, data and cost

• Cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP, Cloudflare), CI/CD, observability and security.

• The data stack: data warehouse (Redshift, MotherDuck/DuckDB), ETL, and large-scale migrations.

• Platform costs: token and inference spend, subscriptions, and vendor negotiations.

Team

• Hire people, develop them, and let them go when needed. Hire people stronger than yourself.

• Build an engineering culture where the team owns outcomes and needs little day-to-day management.

• Use AI agents such as Claude Code as your main working tool, and make them the team’s main tool too, not an experiment.

Must have

• 10+ years in software engineering, including 4+ years as CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Engineering, or Principal/Staff Engineer at a product company or a strong startup.

• A track record of building systems from zero to production with real users and real load. You must have built them yourself, not only led the teams that did.

• Deep hands-on experience running LLMs in production: agents, RAG, tool use and MCP, evals, and cost control. We are looking for real deployments, not pilots.

• Strong backend architecture and data engineering: distributed systems, integrations, data stores, security and access control.

• Experience managing an engineering team, including hiring and firing.

• The ability to explain a technical decision to a client’s non-technical executives and win their support for it.

• Fluent English.

Nice to have

• Good working knowledge of RU language

• Experience in B2B SaaS, enterprise deployments, or forward-deployed engineering

• Experience with company data: HRIS, ERP, finance, organisational structure.

• A strong personal AI productivity setup.

We offer competitive base, performance-based bonus, and the opportunity to join the team during fast growth.