VP Engineering Job Description and Leadership Profile

The VP Engineering leads engineering strategy, delivery and team development for technology-driven organisations. Candidates should apply if they have senior technical leadership experience, a record of scaling engineering teams and the ability to align engineering outcomes with business goals.

VP Engineering Job Profile

The VP Engineering is responsible for defining and delivering the technical vision that enables product and business objectives. This role owns engineering strategy, architecture guidance, delivery processes and the development of senior engineering managers to ensure the organisation builds reliable, scalable systems.

The purpose of the role is to translate strategic priorities into executable engineering plans, create a performance-oriented yet collaborative engineering culture and ensure operational excellence across software delivery, quality and infrastructure.

VP Engineering Job Description

The VP Engineering will set the long term technical direction and partner with product, operations and executive leadership to prioritise engineering initiatives. They are expected to balance architectural evolution with delivery cadence, ensuring teams deliver value predictably while maintaining technical health and resilience.

This senior leader will establish and monitor engineering metrics, drive improvements to development and release processes, and lead recruitment and development of engineering talent. The role requires clear communication with stakeholders at all levels, accountability for delivery outcomes and the ability to make trade off decisions that align technology investments with organisational priorities.

Working in a dynamic environment, the VP Engineering must manage risk, ensure compliance with applicable standards and governance, and promote best practice in software engineering. They will cultivate a high performing culture focused on continuous improvement, operational stability and effective cross-functional collaboration.

VP Engineering: Duties and Responsibilities

• Define and communicate a clear engineering strategy that supports business objectives and product roadmaps.
• Lead architectural decisions to ensure scalable, secure and maintainable system designs.
• Own engineering delivery outcomes, including timelines, quality and operational reliability.
• Establish and track engineering metrics to measure productivity, quality and system health.
• Recruit, develop and retain senior engineering managers and technical leaders.
• Design and implement processes for software development lifecycle, testing and release management.
• Manage engineering budgets and resource planning to align capacity with priorities.
• Collaborate with product, design and business stakeholders to prioritise technical work and trade offs.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance performance, observability and scalability.
• Ensure adherence to security, privacy and regulatory requirements relevant to engineering work.
• Mentor engineering leaders on people management, technical decision making and conflict resolution.
• Oversee vendor and third party technology relationships where applicable.
• Champion a culture of quality, ownership and accountability across engineering teams.
• Identify and mitigate technical and project risks to safeguard delivery and operational continuity.

VP Engineering: Requirements and Qualifications

• Bachelor degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical discipline; advanced degree preferred.
• Proven senior leadership experience, typically 10+ years in engineering roles with at least 5 years in a director or VP level position.
• Demonstrable experience delivering large scale, distributed systems and modern software architectures.
• Strong track record of building and scaling high performing engineering teams.
• Experience with engineering governance, risk management and regulatory compliance in technology contexts.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with experience reporting to executive leadership.
• Proven ability to define and measure engineering metrics that drive improvement.
• Experience with budgeting, capacity planning and resource allocation for engineering organisations.
• Strong decision making and problem solving skills in complex technical and organisational situations.
• Commitment to mentorship, talent development and inclusive team culture.
• Ability to prioritise competing demands and make trade off decisions aligned to business outcomes.
• Experience working across cross functional teams and influencing product and business strategy.
• Practical knowledge of operational practices for reliability, monitoring and incident management.