Head of Engineering – GovTech

European Recruitment BV; United States; Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

European Recruitment BV in the United States is seeking an experienced engineering leader to own execution, scale an AI-native team, and keep product shipping rapidly with quality in a GovTech context. This full-time, hybrid role requires guiding architecture, mentoring senior engineers, and collaborating with leadership to balance technical excellence with business goals.

The ideal candidate has 7+ years of software experience, strong front-end and back-end skills, and a proven ability to hire

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, including leadership at an early-stage B2B startup.
• Experience leading distributed engineering teams of 5+ engineers.
• Strong background building user-facing apps with data modelling and production data systems.
• Hands-on production coding within the last six months.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end engineering execution to deliver reliable, high-quality products.
• Align technical decisions with business priorities with leadership.
• Drive velocity by establishing planning, code review, incident response, security, and delivery processes.
• Mentor a distributed team while contributing to production code when needed.
• Champion AI development tools to boost productivity and software quality.
• Grow the engineering team by maintaining a high hiring bar and culture.

Skills

Leadership experience

Distributed teams

Architectural decisions

Mentorship

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

React

Node.js

PostgreSQL

AWS

Terraform

Job description

A profitable, venture-backed GovTech startup is transforming one of the biggest bottlenecks in housing development by modernizing the permitting process for local governments. After spending years working closely with municipalities to understand the challenges firsthand, the team has built an AI-native platform that helps governments process permits faster, improving the experience for both staff and applicants.

With strong product-market fit, growing enterprise demand, and customers that include major cities and government agencies across the US, the company is entering its next phase of growth. They're looking for an experienced engineering leader to own engineering execution, scale a high-performing AI-native team, and ensure the product continues to ship quickly without compromising quality.

This is a full time, hybrid - 3 days per week onsite in SF - position.

Key Responsibilities

• Own engineering execution end-to-end, ensuring products are delivered quickly, reliably, and at a consistently high standard
• Partner closely with leadership to align technical decisions with business priorities, making architectural decisions that strengthen the product and long-term competitive advantage
• Drive engineering velocity by establishing effective processes around planning, code review, incident response, security, and delivery
• Lead and mentor a distributed team of senior engineers while remaining hands-on enough to make technical decisions and contribute to production code when needed
• Champion the effective use of AI development tools to improve engineering productivity and software quality
• Help grow the engineering team by maintaining a high hiring bar and building a strong engineering culture

Key Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, including recent leadership experience at an early-stage B2B startup
• Experience working in a 10 to 20 person startup environment
• Proven experience leading distributed engineering teams of 5+ engineers
• Strong background building user-facing applications with expertise in data modelling and production data systems
• Experience in GovTech, fintech, healthtech, or other regulated industries is highly valued, as is experience as a founder, founding engineer, or at data-centric product companies
• Strong technical fundamentals with recent hands-on production coding experience within the last six months
• Experience across React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS, and Terraform
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to both leadership and customers
• Genuine interest in solving real-world government and housing challenges