VP of Product Engineering

Clever Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 325,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO and Paid Parental Leave

Health, Vision, and Dental coverage

Annual company retreat + team events

Job summary

Clever Inc. is seeking a Vice President of Product Engineering to lead five product engineering teams delivering across a container-based AWS stack (Go, Node, TypeScript).

You’ll own engineering’s share of product strategy, partner with the VP of Product, and engage CIOs and CTOs across districts and partners to shape the roadmap and ensure secure, scalable delivery. You’ll drive AI-enabled development, mentor senior leaders, and maintain a strong, inclusive culture while working with customers

Qualifications

• Technical leadership in software development with deep hands-on skills.
• Experience leading multi-team engineering orgs with managers.
• Proven track record applying AI across the SDLC to improve outcomes.
• Built and operated external SaaS products with high availability.
• Partnered with product leadership to set strategy and roadmap.
• Able to communicate technical tradeoffs to executives and customers.

Responsibilities

• Lead five product engineering teams (~40 engineers) across full-stack development.
• Set technical direction and architecture for Clever’s products and AI initiatives.
• Own engineering's half of product strategy and collaborate with the VP of Product.
• Represent Clever in customer reviews, industry events, and standards groups.
• Drive predictable delivery aligned with customer needs and security requirements.

Skills

Technical leadership

Leading leaders

AI in lifecycle

Customer-facing SaaS

Product strategy

Executive communication

Customer engagement

Cross-functional partnership

Job description

Clever is seeking a Vice President of Product Engineering to lead the teams that build what schools and application partners rely on every day. Clever is a two-sided platform. School districts of every size use us for identity management, SSO, and the portal students and teachers log into each morning, while thousands of edtech applications use our APIs to integrate with those schools. You’ll lead five product engineering teams of about 40 engineers, building across the full stack on a container-based microservices architecture in AWS with Go, Node, and TypeScript. Reporting to the CTO and partnering as a peer with our VP of Product, you’ll own engineering’s half of product strategy and be a visible technical leader with the district CIOs and partner CTOs who choose Clever.

How You’ll Make an Impact

• The problem you’ll solve: Clever serves two very different customers on one platform. You’ll make sure what we build for districts and for application partners fits together, balancing immediate customer needs with the scale, resilience, and security that students depend on every school day.
• Who you’ll partner with: Your closest partner is our VP of Product, and together you’ll own the product and engineering roadmap. You’ll work alongside our Infrastructure, Data, and Security platform teams, and directly with customers: CIOs and CTOs at school districts, CTOs and chief customer officers at application partners, and their technical staff.
• What success looks like: A roadmap that Product and Engineering own together, predictable delivery on the work that matters most to customers, a strong bench of managers across all five teams, and AI built into how every team plans, builds, tests, and ships. You’ll know it’s working when customers ask for you by name and engineering is shaping strategy, not just receiving it.
• Key projects you’ll lead: You’ll lead how AI is applied across our software development lifecycle, from design and coding through testing, review, and release. You’ll set technical direction and architecture for Clever’s products and dig into our most complex systems to keep them sound. You’ll represent Clever in customer business reviews, at industry events, and in education technology standards groups.

What We’re Looking For

Required Skills & Experience (Must-Haves)

• Technical leadership: You came up building software and can still go deep. You review designs, challenge architecture decisions, and earn the respect of senior engineers.
• Leading leaders: Has led a multi-team engineering organization of roughly 30 or more engineers through managers, including hiring and developing those managers and building an inclusive, high-performing culture.
• AI in the development lifecycle: Has led an engineering organization in applying AI across the software development lifecycle, changing how teams design, build, test, and ship, with results you can point to.
• Customer-facing products at scale: Has built and operated external, customer-facing SaaS products with high availability and resilience requirements, not only internal platforms or tooling.
• Product partnership: Has partnered with a product leader as a peer to set strategy and roadmap, not only to execute it.
• Customer engagement: Has worked directly with customers’ technical decision makers, such as CIOs, CTOs, or IT leaders, and turned that input into product and architecture decisions. Able to travel one to two times per quarter for company and customer meetings.
• Executive communication: Can explain technical strategy and tradeoffs clearly to executives, customers, and engineers alike.
• Experience: 10+ years as an engineering leader including at least 3+ years at the director level or higher.

Preferred Qualifications (Nice-to-Haves)

• Identity and access management: Experience building SSO, identity lifecycle, directory, rostering, or access management products.
• Two-sided platforms: Experience building platforms, developer ecosystems, or APIs that other companies build on.
• International growth: Experience building products for customers outside the U.S., including adapting them to local data privacy rules, languages, and regional requirements.
• Education: Experience in edtech, or building for K-12 or higher education institutions.
• Our stack: Hands-on familiarity with AWS, Go, Node, TypeScript, and container-based microservices.
• Regulated scale: Has scaled a platform to millions of daily users in a regulated industry such as education, healthcare, or finance.
• Industry presence: Participation in industry standards bodies, or representing an engineering organization through talks, writing, or advisory boards.

Salary Transparency

The range of our base salary cash compensation for this role for candidates living in the United States, besides NYC and San Francisco, CA, is between $325,000 - $350,000. For candidates living in NYC and San Francisco, CA, it's between $340,000 - $375,000. All final offers are determined using multiple factors, including experience and level of expertise.

• Flexible PTO and Paid Parental Leave
• Comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage
• Annual company retreat + team events

Inclusion & Belonging

Clever believes classrooms and our company should be diverse and inclusive. We celebrate actions that build diverse teams, include every voice, and create safe spaces for everyone to bring their authentic selves to work.