VP of Software Engineering

VP of Software Engineering

We are seeking a VP of Software Engineering for an HR SaaS client that makes a product that is highly configurable for enterprise clients. This is a full-time and direct hire role for one of our amazing partners on the East Coast, and they are open to remote candidates located in EST or CST time zones.

Youll be a key member of the Senior Leadership Team, and report directly to the CEO. You will be responsible for developing and implementing the technology strategy and will serve as the strategic leader for the Cloud Operations, IT team, and Software Engineering team. You will ensure security and uptime for the cloud operations and continue to build their industry-leading product. You will continuously evaluate and improve processes to adapt to market trends and growth opportunities.

Responsibilities:

Set clear priorities and goals for the Technical Team with long-term vision and strategy of the company, while balancing immediate operational and sales requirements.

Develop and improve operational strategies, metrics, and reporting related to Cloud Operations and Software Engineering functions.

Manage a couple of Technical Directors and their teams.

Help the cloud team define and meet the teams uptime, cybersecurity, and compliance commitments. Work with them to achieve SOC II Type 2 compliance starting in 2025.

Help the software team define and meet the teams roadmap, product quality, and innovation commitments.

Build a Product Team from the ground up, integrate them with the Software Engineering team and set a clear vision and plan for the technical future.

Develop and manage a technical team annual budget.

Facilitate and continually improve testing and implementation of Disaster Recovery and Incident Response plans.

Manage the Technical Teams resource allocation, goal setting and performance metrics.

Provide regular performance feedback and one-on-one discussions with team members.

Comply with company standards and industry best practices.

Identify and manage risks associated with all technology operations and product development.

Foster an engaging, fun, collaborative, and performance-driven work environment that results in low employee turnover and high employee satisfaction.

Requirements:

10+ years of technical experience in a SaaS B2B software company.

3+ years leading software engineering teams, with a solid understanding of software engineering.

3+ years leading cloud operations Teams, with a solid understanding of cloud engineering.

Experience at a software company leading SOC II Type 2 compliance.

Ability to identify and manage risks associated with all technology operations and product development.

Bachelors degree or equivalent experience in computer science, software engineering, or related discipline.

Nice to Have:

Experience working in B2B HR Technology with large enterprise customers, specifically working with CHRO, Talent Acquisition/Compliance, and/or Compensation departments.

Strong experience working with Microsoft .NET technology and Microsoft Azure

Experience working with large Fortune 1000 customers

Experience as a key partner in strategic planning for a growing B2B software business.

Customer Operations and/or Customer Success experience.

Product Management experience.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, age, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, or military or veteran status.

My notes: (They would consider a CTO title for a rockstar)

Role: They are looking to hire a VP of Engineering to report to the CEO and to replace their CTO who is retiring. They want a VP who can grow into a CTO and they would be on the path to CTO in a 12-18-month period. The current CTO is really good, and the CEO doesn't have to worry about tech now. He doesn't want a disruptive leader, but someone who is steadfast and dependable. They need to have a level of sophistication and maturity. He wants them to push the team to deliver, but to also be conscientious about where and how to do so. They will build out the product part of the organization as well. They need someone who can keep the wheels on the company, and not disrupt too much. They want someone who can push them to be better, though. Their product is big and complex and solves a lot of problems for their B2B enterprise customers. They care about their customers and what they want, rather than just adding random features that don't make sense. You will primarily work with the internal teams and business, but you will work with their customers at times to see what features make sense to support or not support anymore, and which ones they can add. This role is primarily strategic leadership with 5% hands on, but they should have a technical background to understand what is going on and bring in the right resource. This is someone with real experience in a similar role and jot just looking for their next step up. They will report to the CEO and lead a team of Cloud and System Engineers and the software team. They will also lead the SOC 2 compliance. They will have to translate technical info to non-technical people, including the CEO. They will also have to interact with the board and move at a fast pace for them. The current CTO is active in troubleshooting and determining what resource to pull in. You'll be over architecture, software development methodology, deployment strategy and DevOps.

Must have skills: Someone with at least 10+ years of technical experience, and a true executive leader that has real experience management software development and cloud operations teams. Ideally with experience with the Microsoft stack and Azure, but AWS is ok. Someone who's worked for a B2B SaaS company selling to enterprise clients, but it's not important how large their company was, if they know they are walking into a smaller company. HR SaaS experience is the preference, and would prefer that over being local. They need to have SOC 2 compliance experience, or at least experience being part of a leadership team that is making SOC 2 compliance happen. They need to be mature and have experience making decisions in the tech world. Also, some experience working in company where the President is a non-technical person because they'll have to translate tech and business to the CEO. You need to work at a good pace and should have experience working with a sophisticated investor base and/or a board that expects fast movement and timelines. They want someone with a product led mindset to help drive product leaders and has experience working with or owning product management. Prefers someone from a development background, since that team is larger.

Nice to have skills: Coming up on system side is ok, but their development side is larger, so that is the presence. Azure cert would be a plus.

IT Team: Team: They have just under 20 people on the team with two direct reports, a Director of Cloud Operations and IT and a Director of Software Engineering. They don't have a product team yet, but they will be over them when they do. They have 4 people on cloud team and 13 on the software side (5 developers, a software manager, tech lead (architect), QA Manager, 2 QA's, a product owner and the Director of Software Engineering). They also have another guy named Paul that works directly for the CTO. He maintains their front end tool and does special projects.

Tech stack: They are a Microsoft shop with Microsoft .NET tech stack (C , ASP.NET, WebAPI), .NET UI Frameworks (WinForms, Telerik, Infragistics, etc) and Azure. On the cloud and IT side, they use Microsoft VM, Azure SQL, some app servers and supporting tech. They use Azure DevOps for their automated deployments They use an agile SDLC methodology. Their current front end is custom visual web GUI, which is the weakest part of their tech stack. It will need a rewrite.

Why is it open: Their current CTO is retiring, and his last day is June 30th. His Linked In is and he has been there since 2019. He would ideally want this person to start by early June, because he wants at least a month of crossover. The Director of Engineering is not ready for this next step and he doesn't think he ever will be.

Personalities: Strong bias toward action. Ability to solve problems autonomously. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills. They should have an entrepreneurial mindset. Someone who is mature and sophisticated. Someone who has humility to listen, be kind and be open to other points of view. Someone who has the confidence in what they know and can admit when they don't know something. Someone who can push back in a respectful way if they don't agree. They should be optimistic, have good energy and be happy to be there. Someone who is flexible and good with change. They need grit, resilience and can roll with punches.

Salary/Bonus: $200K-$240K plus 25% bonus and meaningful equity (that's how we should word it). Equity is going to be within .5-1 p-unit, and 1 p-unit point is equivalent to about a million dollars at exit (2-3 years from now). He wants someone who wants to stay after exit and he plans on staying too.

Interview Process: It will be a 5 step process after us. It will be a 30 min interview with the CEO, HR and CTO to determine fit and likeability. Then a technical interview with Mike/Henryk (1 hour). Then a 2-3 hour top grading with Michelle (no more than 4-5 people in this stage) . click apply for full job details