Vice President of Engineering

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

Benefits offered by this job

Meaningful equity

Strong leadership team

Well-capitalized environment

Job summary

Harrison Clarke in San Francisco is seeking a VP of Engineering to lead the engineering organization and partner closely with the founders. Candidates should have over 10 years of engineering experience, including significant leadership in high-growth startups. This is a unique opportunity to set technical direction, build a team, and influence the culture of a seed-stage company with substantial backing. The role requires a strong technical foundation and an exceptional ability to recruit and mentor talent.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams.
• Experience scaling an engineering organization through significant growth.
• Deep technical skills in modern backend systems and cloud-native architecture.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction and translate product vision into a technical roadmap.
• Recruit, hire, and mentor a world-class engineering team.
• Stay close to the code and participate in the development process.

Skills

Engineering management

Recruitment and talent acquisition

Backend systems

Distributed infrastructure

Cloud-native architecture

Job description

We're a newly un-stealthed, seed-stage startup based in San Francisco, founded by a team of repeat operators with deep technical pedigrees and a track record of building category-defining products. We're backed by a tier-one venture capital firm and a syndicate of world-class angels who've helped scale some of the most consequential technology companies of the last decade.

We've spent the past year heads-down building, validating with design partners, and assembling a small but exceptional founding team. Now we're ready to scale and we're looking for a VP of Engineering to be our most senior technical leader and a true partner to the founders.

The Opportunity

This is a rare ground-floor role. You'll be employee-level senior leadership at a company with the resources of a Series B and the canvas of a true zero-to-one. You will define how we build, who we hire, and how we ship - and you'll do it alongside founders who have been here before and know how to win.

If you've ever wanted to build the engineering organization you wished you had without the legacy debt, political baggage, or process theater: this is that seat.

What You'll Do

• Set technical direction. Partner with the founders to translate product vision into a pragmatic, ambitious technical roadmap.
• Build the team. Recruit, hire, and mentor a world-class engineering team from ~5 to 25+ over the next 18–24 months. Your network and your taste will define our bar.
• Ship the product. Stay close to the code. At seed stage, leadership means writing, reviewing, and architecting alongside the team — not just managing it.
• Establish engineering culture. Define how we make decisions, how we review code, how we run on-call, and how we balance speed with craftsmanship.
• Own architecture and infrastructure. Make foundational choices on stack, cloud, data, and security that will scale with us through Series B and beyond.
• Drive cross-functional execution. Work shoulder-to-shoulder with product, design, and go-to-market to turn a roadmap into shipped, customer-loved software.
• Be a face of the company. Help close candidates, brief investors, and represent us in the technical community.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams at high-growth startups or top-tier tech companies.
• Has scaled an engineering org from a small founding team (≤10) through a meaningful growth stage (50+), ideally at a Series A→C company.
• Deep hands-on technical chops in modern backend systems, distributed infrastructure, and cloud-native architecture. You can still earn the respect of senior ICs in a code review.
• Exceptional recruiter and talent magnet — you have a network you're proud of and a track record of pulling great people into great rooms.
• Strong product sensibility. You think about users, not just systems.
• Experience operating in ambiguity. You're energized — not paralyzed — by a blank page.
• Based in or willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area. This role is in-person with the founding team.

Bonus Points

• Prior founding engineer or VP/Head of Engineering experience at a venture-backed startup.
• Background in AI/ML, infrastructure, developer tools, or applied research environments.
• Experience hiring globally and building distributed engineering pods.
• You've shipped something you're genuinely proud of — and can talk about what you'd do differently next time.

Why Join

• Founders who've done it before. Both technical, both product-obsessed, both committed to building a generational company.
• Tier-one capital, long runway. We are well-capitalized to focus on building, not fundraising.
• Meaningful equity. This is a senior leadership role at the seed stage — the upside reflects that.
• A small, exceptional team. Every hire so far has been someone we'd run through walls for. We intend to keep that bar.
• Real problems, real customers. We have design partners using the product today and a clear path to revenue.