Role Overview for VP, Software Engineering with a Cloud Platform – Seattle, WA
JRG Partners is proud to partner with a trailblazing, high-growth technology firm at the forefront of digital innovation. Our client is a market leader, renowned for its disruptive solutions and a culture that champions creativity, collaboration, and relentless improvement. They are seeking a transformative executive to join their senior leadership team as the Vice President of Software Engineering, specializing in Cloud Platforms. This is a career-defining opportunity based in their dynamic Seattle, WA headquarters.
As the VP of Software Engineering, you will be the strategic mind and inspirational leader behind the company’s core cloud infrastructure and services. You will inherit and cultivate a world-class engineering organization, setting the technical vision and architectural direction that will empower the entire company to build, deploy, and operate software at an unprecedented scale. This role is not just about managing teams; it’s about shaping the future of the company’s technology stack, fostering a culture of engineering excellence, and serving as a key partner to the C-suite in driving business outcomes through technology. You will be responsible for the platform’s reliability, scalability, security, and performance, ensuring it serves as a robust foundation for all current and future product offerings. Your leadership will directly impact the company’s ability to innovate faster, enter new markets, and deliver exceptional value to a global customer base. We are looking for a leader who can think strategically at 30,000 feet but is also comfortable diving deep into complex technical challenges to guide their teams to success.
Key Responsibilities of VP, Software Engineering with a Cloud Platform – Seattle, WA
The VP of Software Engineering will have a broad and impactful scope of responsibilities, including but not limited to:
Strategic Technical Leadership & Vision
Define and evangelize the long-term technical vision and strategy for the cloud platform. Drive architectural decisions to ensure the development of highly scalable, reliable, and secure systems. Champion the adoption of best practices in software development, including CI/CD, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).
Organizational Leadership and Team Development
Lead, mentor, and scale a multi-leveled organization of software engineers, SREs, and engineering managers. Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous learning. Attract, hire, and retain top-tier engineering talent, building a diverse and inclusive team environment. Implement effective career pathing and professional development programs for your organization.
Execution and Operational Excellence
Oversee the end-to-end software development lifecycle for all platform services. Drive engineering execution to deliver against an ambitious roadmap with quality and predictability. Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for system performance, reliability, and engineering velocity. Ensure the platform meets stringent SLAs and SLOs.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Act as a key strategic partner to the Chief Technology Officer, Chief Product Officer, and other executive leaders. Collaborate closely with product management to align the platform roadmap with business and product needs. Work with security and compliance teams to ensure the platform adheres to industry standards and regulations.
Innovation and Technology Evangelism
Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends, evaluating and advocating for their adoption where they can provide a competitive advantage. Encourage a culture of innovation, experimentation, and calculated risk-taking within the engineering team. Represent the company’s technical brand at industry conferences and in thought leadership forums.
Financial and Resource Management
Develop and manage the engineering budget, including cloud infrastructure costs, tooling, and headcount. Optimize resource allocation to maximize impact and ensure alignment with strategic priorities. Make data-driven decisions regarding technology investments and vendor relationships.
Requirements for the VP, Software Engineering with a Cloud Platform – Seattle, WA
The ideal candidate is a seasoned technology executive with a proven track record of building and scaling high-performance engineering teams and complex, distributed systems. You are a strategic thinker, an exceptional leader, and possess a deep technical background.
Executive Leadership Experience
A minimum of 15 years of experience in the software industry, with at least 7-10 years in a senior engineering leadership role (e.g., VP, Senior Director) managing organizations of 50+ engineers. Proven experience managing other managers and directors is essential.
Deep Technical Acumen
Extensive hands-on experience and architectural expertise in designing, building, and operating large-scale, distributed systems on public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure). You must have a profound understanding of modern cloud-native architectures, including microservices, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and serverless computing.
Platform and Infrastructure Expertise
Demonstrable experience leading platform or infrastructure engineering teams. Expertise in areas such as API gateways, service mesh, data pipelines, observability (monitoring, logging, tracing), and developer tooling is highly desirable.
Proven Ability to Scale
A track record of scaling teams, processes, and systems through periods of rapid growth. Experience navigating the challenges of evolving a monolith to microservices or managing a complex, multi-service environment is a significant plus.
Exceptional People Management Skills
A passion for developing and mentoring talent. You must be an empathetic leader who can inspire and motivate teams, resolve conflicts, and build a positive and productive engineering culture.
Strong Business and Product Sense
The ability to understand business requirements and translate them into a technical strategy. Experience working in an agile environment and collaborating effectively with product management and other business stakeholders.
Excellent Communication Skills
Superior verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate a compelling technical vision to both technical and non-technical audiences, from individual contributors to the board of directors.
Educational Background
A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field is required.
Benefits & Perks Offered
Our client is committed to investing in their employees and offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, well-being, and financial future.
Competitive Compensation
A highly competitive base salary, an aggressive annual performance bonus, and a significant equity package.
Comprehensive Health Coverage
Premium medical, dental, and vision insurance plans for you and your dependents with low employee contributions.
Retirement Planning
A 401(k) plan with a generous company match to help you save for your future.
Generous Time Off
A flexible and generous Paid Time Off (PTO) policy, in addition to company-paid holidays, to encourage a healthy work-life balance.
Family Support
Comprehensive paid parental leave for all new parents.
Wellness and Development
A monthly wellness stipend for gym memberships or other health activities, access to mental health resources, and a substantial annual budget for professional development, conferences, and training.
Office Perks
A modern and collaborative office space in Seattle, catered lunches, a fully stocked kitchen, and company-sponsored social events.
Commuter Benefits
Pre-tax commuter benefits to make your journey to the office easier.
How to Apply
This is a retained search being conducted exclusively by JRG Partners. If you are a visionary engineering leader ready to take on a new challenge and make a significant impact on a rapidly growing company, we encourage you to apply.
Please submit your resume and a cover letter detailing your relevant experience. Qualified candidates will be contacted by a representative from the JRG Partners’ Technology Executive Search practice. Our client is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at their company. They do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
