Accountabilities:
As VP of Product Engineering, you will lead engineering strategy, technical architecture, team development, and product delivery across a complex, customer-facing platform. Working in close partnership with Product, Infrastructure, Data, and Security teams, you will ensure engineering priorities align with customer needs and long-term business objectives.
- Product and engineering strategy: Partner with the VP of Product to define and own the product and engineering roadmap, balancing immediate customer priorities with long-term scalability, resilience, and security.
- Engineering leadership: Lead five product engineering teams comprising approximately 40 engineers, developing a strong organization through effective management, coaching, hiring, and leadership development.
- Technical direction and architecture: Establish technical direction for products built on a container-based microservices architecture in AWS, and engage directly with complex systems, design decisions, and architectural tradeoffs.
- AI-driven development: Lead the adoption of AI across the software development lifecycle, integrating AI into design, coding, testing, code review, and release processes to improve engineering productivity and delivery quality.
- Product delivery and execution: Establish predictable delivery practices, focus teams on high-impact customer needs, and strengthen collaboration between Product and Engineering.
- Platform reliability and security: Ensure customer-facing SaaS products meet high standards for availability, resilience, security, and performance across a two-sided platform serving school districts and application partners.
- Customer engagement: Build relationships with school district CIOs, application partner CTOs, chief customer officers, and technical teams to understand their needs and translate feedback into product and architecture decisions.
- Cross-functional collaboration: Work closely with Infrastructure, Data, and Security platform teams to maintain a cohesive, reliable, and scalable technology ecosystem.
- External representation: Represent the organization in customer business reviews, industry events, and education technology standards groups.
- Engineering culture: Build an inclusive, high-performing engineering organization where managers and engineers take ownership, contribute to strategic decisions, and continuously improve technical practices.
- International and ecosystem growth: Where relevant, support product evolution for international markets, developer ecosystems, and external application integrations.
Requirements:
The ideal candidate is a technically accomplished engineering executive who has successfully led multiple teams through managers, partnered with Product at the strategic level, and built reliable customer-facing SaaS platforms at scale. You should combine architectural depth with strong executive communication, customer engagement, and a demonstrated ability to modernize engineering practices through AI.
- Engineering leadership experience: At least 10 years of experience as an engineering leader, including at least 3 years at Director level or above.
- Organizational leadership: Proven experience leading a multi-team engineering organization of approximately 30 or more engineers through managers.
- Manager development: Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, and develop engineering managers while building an inclusive, high-performing culture.
- Technical expertise: A strong software engineering background and the ability to review technical designs, challenge architecture decisions, and engage deeply with complex systems.
- AI adoption: Experience leading an engineering organization in applying AI across the software development lifecycle, with measurable results in how teams design, build, test, review, and ship software.
- Customer-facing SaaS: Experience building and operating external SaaS products that require high availability, resilience, security, and scalability.
- Strategic product partnership: Experience working as a peer to a senior Product leader to define product strategy and roadmaps, rather than simply executing an established plan.
- Executive and customer engagement: Experience working directly with technical decision-makers, including CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders, and translating their feedback into product and architecture decisions.
- Communication skills: Ability to communicate technical strategy, architectural tradeoffs, and business implications clearly to executives, customers, and engineering teams.
- Travel availability: Willingness to travel one to two times per quarter for company and customer meetings.
- Preferred identity expertise: Experience with single sign-on, identity lifecycle management, directories, student rostering, or access management products.
- Preferred platform experience: Experience building two-sided platforms, developer ecosystems, or APIs used by external companies.
- Preferred international experience: Experience adapting products for international customers, including regional requirements, languages, and data privacy regulations.
- Preferred industry background: Experience in education technology, K–12 or higher education, or another regulated industry such as healthcare or finance.
- Preferred technical stack: Familiarity with AWS, Go, Node.js, TypeScript, and container-based microservices.
- Preferred scale and industry engagement: Experience supporting platforms with millions of daily users and participating in industry standards bodies, technical speaking engagements, writing, or advisory boards.
Benefits:
- Competitive base salary:
- $325,000–$350,000 annually for candidates based in the United States outside New York City and San Francisco, California.
- $340,000–$375,000 annually for candidates based in New York City or San Francisco, California.
- Final offers depend on experience and level of expertise.
- Flexible paid time off: Flexible PTO to support work-life balance.
- Paid parental leave: Paid leave for eligible new parents.
- Comprehensive healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
- Mental health support: Access to mental healthcare services.
- Professional development: A dedicated budget for learning and career growth.
- Company gatherings: An annual company retreat and team events.
- Inclusive culture: A commitment to diversity, belonging, and creating an environment where employees can contribute authentically and feel supported.