VP of Engineering

Recruitly Talent Partners; Fort Worth, Arlington, Dallas (TX, TX, TX); On-site; USD 250,000 - 400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Unlimited PTO

9 paid holidays

401k match

Medical coverage

Job summary

Recruitly Talent Partners seeks a VP of Engineering to lead an AI-native startup’s engineering team. You will partner with the executive team to set strategy, drive production deployments, and manage on-prem solutions in collaboration with product and marketing teams.

You will hire and mentor engineers, translate roadmaps into shipped software, and balance speed with quality while maintaining security and observability in customer environments. Strong leadership and communication are essential.

Qualifications

• 7+ years at an early-stage company.
• 5+ years leading engineering teams.
• Bachelor's degree in CS, Software Eng, or related field.
• Proven experience shipping enterprise or B2B software, ideally with security or on-prem constraints.
• Experience growing a team through promotions or adding headcount.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and senior leaders.

Responsibilities

• Cultivate a strong engineering culture focused on collaboration, learning, and delivery.
• Lead hiring, set expectations, and establish measurable goals for the team.
• Translate roadmap into shipped software, run sprint planning and prioritization, balance speed and quality.
• Define product strategy and what needs to be accomplished before launch.
• Partner with product, marketing, and other teams; communicate product status and trade-offs.
• Oversee architecture with the interim-CTO and stack (TypeScript, Python, Rust) for on-prem deployment.
• Translate design partner needs into engineering priorities and report progress to founders.
• Ensure reliable, secure, observable on-prem deployments in customer environments.
• Establish hiring, code review, AI-assisted development practices, and release habits.

Skills

Leadership

Executive communication

Cross-functional

People management

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Software Eng

Tools

AWS

Azure

TypeScript

Python

Rust

Job description

Relocation assistance is provided for candidates out-of-state.

The Company

This AI-native startup raised $30M seed and is building a revolutionary AI product. The product works by gathering a company's information from across its many systems and organizes it so AI agents can work with real business context, while the product is installed in the customer's own environment (on-prem). The company has early design partners ranging from healthcare, government, retail, and enterprise companies partnering with them and preparing for a production launch next year. The founder has built and exited successful startups in the past and is seeking a new leader to have a seat at the executive table.

Your Mission

As the VP of Engineering, you will lead the engineering team and be accountable for getting the product from early concept to something customers run in production. At this size, the job is a mix of strategy and hands‑on management, not purely technical. Your role will be to partner with the executive team on measurable goals, communicate with other department leaders on engineering capabilities, and lead the team by fostering a fun and collaborative culture.

The Team

The engineering team is a collaborative and fun group, who are moldable and willing to learn. They do happy hours, get together for coding sessions, and do team outings (ice skating included). The team is excited to welcome their new leader in this role and get hands‑on mentorship.

What You'll Do

• Culture. Whether its team bonding, happy hours, or celebrating wins; this person will find what makes each engineer unique and bring out their best skills.
• Team. Continue to hire strong engineers, set expectations, and manage measurable goals that will challenge your team and help them grow.
• Communicate. Turn the roadmap into shipped software, run sprint planning and prioritization, and make the trade-offs between speed and quality.
• Strategy. Understand the state of the product now and what needs to be accomplished before launching.
• Partner. Work closely with product, marketing, and other non-engineering teams, and explain where the product stands while saying 'no' to certain requests.
• Architecture. Work with the interim-CTO along with the lead engineer on the stack (TypeScript, Python, Rust, on AWS and Azure) and on how the product runs on-prem.
• Customer-facing. Translate what current design partners need into engineering priorities and report progress to the founders.
• Production-ready. Ensure successful on-prem deployment: reliability, security, observability, and installation in customer environments.
• Success. Set up hiring, code review, AI-assisted development practices, and release habits, with the engineering team and company.

Requirements

• 7+ years experience at an early-stage company.
• 5+ years experience leading engineering teams, managing executive expectations, and growing an engineering team.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Proven experience shipping enterprise or B2B software, ideally with security or on-prem constraints.
• Experience growing a team through promotions or adding new headcount.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and senior leaders.

Nice-to-have

• Exposure to AI or LLM products is a plus.
• Relocation assistance provided (US based only).
• Unlimited PTO.
• 9 Paid Holidays.
• 401k with 6% Employer Match.
• Medical coverage for Health, Dental, Vision.

Compensation:

$250,000 - $400,000 + equity.