VP of Software Engineering

Accountabilities

• Lead, develop, and scale the software engineering organization, with accountability for delivery, quality, security, reliability, operational performance, and customer outcomes.
• Define and implement an engineering operating model that evolves the organization from project-based execution toward outcome-based ownership, with clear intake, prioritization, metrics, and delivery rhythms.
• Build a high-performing engineering team through strategic hiring, development, coaching, retention, and capability planning.
• Establish engineering performance metrics and executive reporting covering delivery velocity, quality, AI adoption, operational effectiveness, and business impact.
• Define and execute the organization-wide AI strategy, incorporating AI capabilities into customer products and internal workflows while driving measurable adoption.
• Modernize how institutional knowledge is captured, organized, retrieved, and shared so expertise can scale across the organization.
• Establish responsible AI governance across the software portfolio, including data handling, model selection and usage, evaluation practices, and coordination with IT and cybersecurity teams.
• Own delivery of awarded government software contracts, including scope, schedule, technical quality, staffing, costs, utilization, and customer confidence.
• Represent engineering and AI capabilities with government customers during delivery reviews, technical discussions, and business-development pursuits.
• Partner with growth teams on federal software opportunities by shaping technical approaches, staffing models, pricing inputs, and delivery strategies.
• Establish the technology strategy and architecture roadmap for customer-facing, internal, and field-deployed systems.
• Own the internal platform supporting site teams, operations, members, and customer contracts, ensuring technology is deployed effectively and delivers measurable operational improvements.
• Lead build-versus-buy decisions, vendor relationships, technology investments, and engineering portfolio prioritization.
• Develop business cases for engineering investments, including headcount, tooling, platforms, and external vendors, and manage investments against agreed objectives.
• Partner closely with executive leadership, product, operations, finance, growth, and IT/cybersecurity teams to align technology priorities with business and mission requirements.
• Maintain strong technical relationships with government customers and external technology vendors and partners.
• Drive continuous improvement in engineering delivery, AI adoption, operational workflows, and organizational scalability.

Requirements

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with progressive leadership responsibility, including ownership of a full engineering organization or software product function.
• Demonstrated experience leading software delivery for U.S. government customers, with an understanding of federal procurement, delivery, security, compliance, and operational constraints.
• Strong command of modern AI practices, including large language models (LLMs), agentic frameworks, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), orchestration, evaluation, and AI governance.
• Proven experience building and scaling engineering organizations, including defining operating models, hiring teams, developing talent, and transitioning toward outcome-based delivery.
• Experience owning delivery economics, including cost, staffing, utilization, financial performance, and business cases for technology investment.
• Demonstrated ability to manage executive-level customer and cross-functional relationships and communicate complex technical strategies clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience setting technology strategy, architecture direction, engineering priorities, and investment roadmaps.
• Strong business judgment and the ability to make high-quality decisions in ambiguous, rapidly changing environments.
• Excellent leadership, communication, problem-solving, prioritization, and organizational skills, with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.
• Preferred experience in defense, national security, or another highly regulated environment involving security clearances, compliance requirements, or controlled data.
• Preferred experience contributing to federal software capture, including technical approaches, staffing strategies, and cost inputs for government proposals.
• Preferred experience delivering software used by field-based or operational teams.
• An active U.S. government security clearance is preferred.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States and eligible and willing to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance as a condition of employment.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary range of $230,000–$275,000 USD, depending on qualifications and experience.
• Executive-level opportunity with direct exposure to company leadership and significant influence over technology and business strategy.
• Remote work environment within the United States.
• Opportunity to build and scale an engineering organization and establish its operating model.
• Ownership of an enterprise-wide AI strategy with meaningful influence on both products and internal operations.
• Opportunity to work directly with government and national security customers on mission-critical technology.
• Significant visibility into business growth, technology investment, customer engagement, and strategic decision-making.
• Opportunity to shape the technology roadmap, engineering culture, hiring strategy, and long-term organizational capabilities.