Senior Engineering Manager

VGS; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with 4% match

Early equity

Internet stipend

Learning stipend

Office set-up stipend

Health insurance

Job summary

VGS is seeking a Senior Manager, Engineering to lead the Payments Acceptance engineering team. You will drive AI-native engineering strategy and guide an autonomous group focused on high-impact Value-Added Services, including Network Tokens and Account Validation.

You will collaborate with Product, CTO, and platform teams to shape the core payments platform and deliver enterprise-grade, scalable systems. We value a high-agency leadership style, robust security/compliance foundations, and a track

Qualifications

• 5+ years managing high-throughput engineering teams.
• Deep familiarity with AI-native SDLC and modern Agile/DevOps.
• Expertise in distributed Java microservices and REST APIs.
• Experience delivering containerized apps in AWS with observability.

Responsibilities

• Pioneer AI-Native Engineering and AI-augmented SDLC practices.
• Drive code quality, CI, automated tests, and incident rigor.
• Align technical strategy with business objectives and roadmaps.
• Hire, coach, and retain top engineering talent.
• Own incident response baselines and ensure system resiliency.

Skills

Engineering Leadership

AI-Augmented SDLC

Distributed Systems

Cloud-Native

High-Agency Management

Security & Compliance

Job description

VGS is building the trust infrastructure for a new era of commerce. As commerce becomes agentic, payments are increasing dramatically in volume, speed, and complexity, and the companies driving that shift need a foundation they can fully trust.

That's where VGS comes in. We're the world's leader in payment tokenization, trusted by the most innovative AI and Fortune 500 companies, merchants, banks, and fintechs to power modern payments and agentic commerce. We store more than 9 billion tokens and process more than 10 billion monthly interactions, touching a third of all e-commerce. That scale isn't incidental. It's why leading companies embed our universal token vault and credential management platform directly into their stack, taming the complexity of payment data so they can move faster.

Come build the platform that enables modern payments for the world's largest companies. We're helping businesses unlock new possibilities in an industry that never stops moving. And that takes exceptional people.

Trusted Engineering That Matters

Engineering at VGS

VGS is building the platform powering agentic commerce and global payments infrastructure. VGS Engineering is the pillar that supports that vision. We create a platform that is an indispensable, ubiquitous component of our partners' payments and security infrastructure. We build and operate high-scale, reliable, and resilient systems that manage mission-critical payment data across the globe. We don't just participate in the payments ecosystem; we power it.

• Modern Tooling as Leverage: We value speed and impact. To ensure nothing slows you down, we arm you with a highly consistent modern stack (e.g. AWS, Kubernetes, Java, TypeScript, Python) and world-class AI-augmented SDLC tooling. We strip away the friction so you can focus on the problems that demand creativity and judgment.
• Ownership of Outcomes: Scaling global payments infrastructure requires individuals who take personal ownership of outcomes from day one. We look for builders who combine high agency with deep strategic alignment; channeling their urgency and relentless iteration into what matters most.
• Mission-Critical Accountability: We power payments infrastructure for global market leaders, making system trust and integrity our core deliverable. We don't treat compliance (PCI, SOC2, ISO27001), security patching, and platform maintenance as administrative overhead—we engineer them with first-class product discipline. In payments infrastructure, reliability is not background work, it’s part of what customers buy.

Learn More: See how our engineering practices drive trust and innovation in our official blog and our reliability practices.

About the Role

As a Senior Manager, Engineering, you will serve as an operational and technical leader driving our Payments Acceptance engineering team. In this role, you will lead an autonomous team focused on expanding our high-impact Value-Added Services (VAS) including Network Tokens, Account Updater, 3DS, and Account Validation.

Reporting to the Senior Director of Payments Acceptance, you will work hand-in-hand with Product Management, the CTO, Tech Leads, and adjacent platform teams to shape the future of our core payments platform. Rather than managing standard daily output or supervising rigid task lists, you will drive technical strategy, pioneer AI-native engineering management, and integrate agentic workflows across the entire SDLC. We are looking for a high-agency leader with an unyielding bias for continuous improvement—someone who refuses to settle for the status quo, hates manual friction, and thrives on building enterprise-grade, mission-critical financial products with world-class scalability, reliability, and security.

What You'll Do

• Pioneer AI-Native Engineering: Lead the paradigm shift in how we design, build, test, and operate services. Champion AI-augmented SDLC practices and agentic workflows to multiply engineering velocity and shorten the path to production.
• Drive Engineering Excellence & Velocity: Challenge outdated workflows and manual toil. Build a high-throughput engineering culture anchored in strict code quality, continuous integration, robust automated testing, and blameless operational rigor.
• Strategic Roadmap Execution: Partner closely with Product Management and architectural leadership to align technical strategy with business objectives. Balance rapid innovation in VAS products with long-term platform performance, security, and scalability.
• Build & Elevate High-Performing Teams: Hire, coach, and retain top engineering talent. Lead from the front by setting clear expectations, removing cross-team friction, and fostering an environment of deep ownership, continuous learning, and high accountability.
• System Resiliency & Operations: Drive high standards for availability, performance, and security across a mission-critical Java microservices environment. Own incident response baselines and establish self-healing system practices alongside adjacent Sustaining and Infrastructure teams.

What You Bring

• Engineering Leadership: 5+ years of experience managing, leading, or architecting high-throughput engineering teams within enterprise or high-growth SaaS environments.
• AI-Augmented SDLC Command: Deep familiarity with modern Agile, DevOps, and SRE practices, specifically adapted for AI-native workflows (e.g., managing agentic code pipelines, automated testing suites, and AI-assisted deployment pipelines).
• Distributed Systems Depth: Proven expertise managing distributed Java microservices. Strong command of REST APIs, event-driven architectures (Kafka/SQS), relational/NoSQL databases, and high-performance data platforms.
• Cloud-Native Mastery: Direct experience delivering containerized applications (Kubernetes, Docker) in public cloud environments (AWS) with modern telemetry and observability stacks.
• High-Agency Management Style: A "lead from the front" mindset with a track record of identifying operational friction and reimagining standard processes. You take personal ownership of outcomes and empower engineers to do the best work of their careers.
• Security & Compliance Foundations: Solid understanding of operating within regulated environments (PCI-DSS, SOC2, ISO27001), treating security and compliance as fundamental engineering constraints.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with tokenization, payment processing, or security products
• A knack for out-of-the-box thinking that thrives in a fast-paced startup environment
• Proven track record of rolling out AI developer tools or agentic workflows across an engineering organization.
• Experience optimizing low-latency distributed data streams and high-concurrency database queries.

$180,000 - $250,000 a year

How We Work

At VGS, we embrace a remote-first philosophy because we believe flexibility leads to great work and a healthy work-life balance. That said, if you live within 30 miles of one of our office locations, you'll be on a hybrid schedule with some in-person time, because we know there's real value in coming together.

We're not about being in the office every day. We are about connection, collaboration, and the energy that comes from a great brainstorm, a team lunch, or celebrating a big win in person.

Financial and retirement

• 401(k) with a 4% match and immediate vesting (applies to US only)
• Early equity
• Internet stipend
• Learning stipend
• Office set-up stipend (applies to US only)

Health and Wellness

• Insurance (medical, dental, and vision)
• HSA/FSA options
• Life and disability insurance

Vacation and time off

• Flexible PTO
• Paid national holidays
• Global parental leave program

Professional Development

• Promote from within
• Lunch and learns
• Team events and summits

Office life and perks

• Remote and hybrid opportunities
• Weekly office lunches
• Employee discount platform

We consider all applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, marital status, physical or mental disability, or other protected classes under all applicable local, state, and federal laws and ordinances (AA/EOE/W/M/Vet/Disabled).

Qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered for this position in accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Where We're Hiring

We are currently hiring in the following locations: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Ontario (Canada), Alberta (Canada), and British Columbia (Canada).