[Hiring] Senior Vice President of Engineering @Koalafi

Role Description

We’re looking for a Senior Vice President of Engineering to lead Koalafi’s entire engineering organization, including our Consumer and Merchant Experience, Core Engineering, and Application Experience groups, as well as our Data & AI Platform and Architecture functions.

Reporting to the Chief Product and Technology Officer, you will partner closely with the CPTO and Head of Product to set engineering direction, translate company priorities into execution, and build an organization that delivers meaningful business results. Your scope spans the platforms, applications, services, and data infrastructure that power our customer experiences, merchant relationships, and internal operations.

This is a company leadership role, not solely an engineering leadership role. You will help shape business decisions, influence across functions, and bring a clear perspective on how technology can support growth, improve efficiency, and strengthen the customer experience.

You must be equally credible in a technical discussion with engineers and a strategic discussion with the executive team or the board—and move comfortably between those two modes.

We’re also looking for an active AI practitioner who will help evolve how Koalafi works. You should be building and experimenting with AI tools yourself, with a thoughtful perspective on how to apply them across engineering and the broader business.

What You’ll Do

• Set engineering direction and own execution.
• Partner with the CPTO, Head of Product, and cross-functional leaders to translate company objectives into a clear engineering strategy, investment priorities, and execution plans.
• Ensure teams understand the outcomes they are accountable for, make realistic commitments, and surface risks and tradeoffs early.
• Own the engineering response when delivery is at risk, aligning leaders on corrective action and following through.
• Build strong partnerships across Product, Risk, Operations, Finance, Sales, and other functions.
• Contribute to company decisions beyond engineering, connecting technical choices to growth, customer experience, operating efficiency, and risk.
• Communicate complex topics clearly and bring well-vetted recommendations to executive discussions.
• Earn the team’s trust through technical expertise, thoughtful questions, and the ability to engage deeply in consequential architectural and engineering decisions.
• Recognize when an initiative, technical risk, or team challenge needs your direct involvement, and engage early enough to make a difference.
• Balance that involvement with clear delegation, strengthening your leaders’ ownership.
• Lead, coach, and hold accountable engineering leaders and managers across the organization.
• Set clear expectations for their technical judgment, business understanding, people leadership, and execution.
• Invest in succession planning, leadership development, and hiring, while addressing performance gaps directly.
• Guide the evolution of our applications, core services, and data platforms.
• Modernize the tech stack where it creates clear business value and be able to defend the ROI.
• Strengthen quality, test automation, delivery practices, observability, and operational readiness.
• Establish useful measures of delivery effectiveness, reliability, cost, and business impact.
• Own engineering budget and capacity planning in partnership with the CPTO and Finance.
• Maintain an active practice of building, prototyping, and experimenting with AI tools yourself.
• Partner with business leaders to identify where generative AI, automation, and better internal tools can improve workflows and outcomes.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive engineering experience, including substantial experience leading managers and senior engineering leaders across multiple teams.
• Strong architectural judgment across complex applications, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and data platforms.
• Understanding of how engineering decisions affect revenue, cost, customer experience, and risk.
• Ability to earn the confidence of executive peers and navigate competing priorities.
• Track record of building inclusive, high-performing organizations and helping managers become stronger leaders.
• Experience with AI tools and their application across engineering and business operations.
• Ability to balance modernization with delivery, speed with reliability, and ambition with available capacity.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in fintech, payments, lending, or other regulated, transaction-intensive environments.
• Familiarity with technologies in our environment—including Go, Node.js, React, AWS, Kubernetes, and native iOS and Android development.
• Fluency in the modern AI stack and its impact on software development.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• 20 PTO days + 11 paid holidays.
• 401(k) retirement with company matching.
• Student Loan & Tuition Reimbursement.
• Commuter assistance.
• Parental leave (maternal + paternal).
• Inclusion and Associate Engagement Programs.