VP of Software Engineering

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a VP of Software Engineering based in the United States.

This is a high-impact executive leadership opportunity for an experienced software engineering leader to define and drive the technical vision of a fast-growing organization serving the defense and national security ecosystem. You will oversee software delivered under government contracts, internal platforms, and an enterprise-wide AI strategy. Reporting directly to the CEO and serving on the executive leadership team, you will shape technology direction while building and scaling the engineering organization. The role combines strategic ownership with hands-on decision-making across architecture, delivery, talent, AI adoption, and technology investment. You will work closely with executive leaders, government customers, operations, growth, finance, and cybersecurity teams. This is an opportunity to establish an engineering operating model, influence business growth, and build technology capabilities with meaningful mission impact.

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.