VP of Engineering

Nightfall AI; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work rhythm

Job summary

Nightfall AI is seeking a VP of Engineering to own the engineering org end to end, spanning the Bay Area and Bangalore. This is a hands-on leadership role for a builder who can dive into hard technical problems while running the org.

You will partner with the CEO and product leaders to shape the technology strategy, scale a cross-border team, enforce secure SDLC, and mentor engineers in the US and India.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field; Master's degree or Ph.D. preferred.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• Hands-on engineering leadership—built org, not just managed it.
• Experience joining a B2B SaaS company at an early stage and growing with it, 5+ years at one company.
• Proven track record delivering high-quality software on time and budget.
• Strong technical skills in software development, architecture, and design.
• Experience mentoring large engineering teams, including India-based teams.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Startup experience preferred; able to operate in a lean Series B environment.
• Security infrastructure or data-intensive systems background is a strong plus.
• Based in Bay Area with a hybrid work rhythm.

Responsibilities

• Lead the engineering team across Bay Area and Bangalore.
• Define and execute the company's technology strategy with the CEO and senior leaders.
• Build and scale processes, standards, and collaboration across global teams.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership in architecture decisions and problem solving.
• Mentor and grow engineering talent; unblock hard technical issues.
• Ensure secure SDLC practices and adherence to least privilege and defense in depth.
• Collaborate with Product to align roadmaps with resource planning and delivery.

Skills

Leadership experience

Software architecture

Cross-functional collaboration

Security engineering

Communication skills

Hands-on engineering

Education

Bachelor's in CS/SE

Master's preferred

Job description

About Nightfall

Nightfall is the AI-native, unified data loss prevention and insider risk management platform that protects sensitive data across SaaS apps, GenAI tools, email, endpoint devices, and more. Hundreds of customers, spanning AI innovators to top 10 banks, trust Nightfall to detect and stop data exfiltration at scale. Nightfall enables organizations to innovate freely without the risks of losing intellectual property or exposing customer data. Our agentic platform helps security teams regain their time by putting data loss prevention on autopilot. With automatic remediation, security violations can be resolved automatically before they become incidents, and end-users can be automatically trained and coached in the moment to self-heal violations that they introduce.

Nightfall is backed by leading VC firms including Bain Capital Ventures (Enrique Salem - former CEO of Symantec), Venrock (early investors in Cloudflare), WestBridge Capital, Pear VC (early investors in Dropbox and Doordash), and a cadre of cybersecurity leaders including Frederic Kerrest (founder of Okta), Maynard Webb (former COO of eBay), Ryan Carlson (President of Chainguard), Kevin Mandia (founder of Mandiant), and many others.

About the role

We're hiring a VP of Engineering to own our engineering organization end to end — architecture, delivery, and the day-to-day operating rhythm of a team split across the Bay Area and Bangalore. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has grown up through engineering, not just managed it: we're looking for a builder who can still get into the weeds on hard technical problems while running the org.

Responsibilities

• Lead the engineering team in designing and delivering high-quality software solutions that meet business requirements.
• Lead and scale a distributed engineering org spanning Palo Alto and Bangalore, building the systems and trust that make a cross-continent team operate as one.
• Develop and implement engineering processes and standards to ensure consistency and quality across projects.
• Collaborate with the CEO and other senior leaders to define and execute the company's technology strategy.
• Manage and allocate resources to ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to the engineering team, staying hands-on enough to review architecture decisions and unblock hard problems.
• Build and maintain a strong engineering culture that fosters innovation and continuous improvement across both the US and India.
• Stay current with emerging trends and technologies in software engineering and recommend new tools and methodologies to improve our development process.
• Work closely with the Product team to define product roadmaps and ensure engineering resources are aligned with product priorities.
• Champion secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices by ensuring the integration of security at every stage, from design to deployment.
• Advocate for and ensure adherence to secure coding standards and design principles such as least privilege, defense in depth, and zero trust.
• Ensure sensitive data is handled securely, leveraging encryption, tokenization, and data masking as appropriate.
• Lead the engineering response during security incidents, ensuring timely containment, resolution, and communication to stakeholders. Drive root cause analysis and implement lessons learned from incidents to prevent recurrence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field; Master's degree or Ph.D. preferred.
• At least 8 years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• A track record of growing from a hands-on technical role into engineering leadership — we're looking for someone who built the org, not just inherited one.
• Experience joining a B2B SaaS company at an early stage (e.g., a founding engineer or one of the first engineering hires) and growing with it through significant scale — ideally 5+ years at one company, moving from IC through senior leadership.
• Proven track record of delivering high-quality software solutions on time and within budget.
• Strong technical skills in software development, architecture, and design.
• Experience managing and mentoring large engineering teams, including demonstrated experience building or closely partnering with an engineering team based in India — someone who knows how to make a Bay Area / Bangalore org function as one team, not two.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and senior leaders.
• Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Startup experience strongly preferred; comfortable operating in a lean, fast-moving Series B environment.
• Background in security, infrastructure, or data-intensive systems; direct security engineering experience (data protection, authentication, auditing, threat detection) is a strong plus.
• Based in Bay Area, with a hybrid work rhythm.

Nice to Have

• Experience at a cybersecurity or data security SaaS company.
• Experience with data infrastructure or large-scale data processing systems.
• Track record shipping AI/ML-powered features in production.

Environment

Nightfall AI takes pride in being an equal-opportunity employer. We value a diverse and global talent pool and the collaboration that results from having a diverse and inclusive team. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. Our hiring decisions are based exclusively on merit, qualifications, and business needs.

Compensation

Employee compensation will be determined based on interview performance, level of experience, specialization of skills, and market rate. During the offer discussion, your recruiter will review the finalized base salary, bonus (for applicable roles), benefits & perks, and stock options as they’ll be reflected in the offer letter.

Compensation Range: $250K - $300K