[Hiring] VP, Engineering @Chainguard

Role Description

We are looking for an Engineering VP to lead a new product engineering organization focused on rapidly bringing new products to market. Reporting to the SVP of Engineering, this executive leader will build, scale, and drive teams that take Chainguard into new product areas — moving from zero to one and one to many with speed, quality, and conviction. This is a builder's role: you'll stand up new teams, define how they operate, ship products on aggressive timelines, and scale what works.

This Engineering VP is a member of the R&D leadership team and plays a direct role in shaping company-wide engineering strategy, operating rhythms, and cross-functional alignment with Product, GTM, and Operations. You'll bring an instinct for using AI to move faster and more efficiently — not as a buzzword, but as a core operating principle for how your teams build, test, and ship software.

What you'll do:

• Build and Ship New Products: Lead engineering efforts to take new product definitions from concept through design, implementation, and launch.
• Scale What Works: Once a product finds traction, build the team, processes, and architecture to scale it.
• AI-First Engineering Culture: Embed AI deeply into how your teams operate.
• Organizational Leadership: Build your organization from the ground up.
• Delivery Excellence: Own quarterly outcome commitments for your organization.
• People-First Culture: Champion servant leadership, retention, and career development across your organization.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner closely with Product Management, Sales, Customer Success, and other functions.
• Technical Direction: Provide strategic technical guidance and ensure sound architectural decisions across your teams.
• Hiring and Talent Strategy: Build a high-performance hiring engine for your organization.
• Budget and Resource Management: Own and manage the engineering budget for your organization.
• Industry Presence: Represent Chainguard externally as a thought leader in open source, cloud-native security, and engineering leadership.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive software engineering and engineering leadership experience.
• Proven track record of taking new products from zero to one.
• Experience managing Directors and/or Senior Managers.
• Track record of building and scaling engineering organizations at high-growth, venture-backed technology companies.
• Hands-on experience using AI tools in your own workflows.
• Deep understanding of cloud-native technologies, open source ecosystems, containers, Kubernetes, and software supply chain security.
• Strong organizational design instincts.
• Demonstrated servant leadership style.
• Excellent communication and executive presence.
• Comfort with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and making high-stakes decisions quickly.
• Experience operating in a fully remote, globally distributed engineering organization.
• Ideally based in the US, Canada, or the UK.

Benefits

• Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
• Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion.
• 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents.
• ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need to recharge and reset.
• 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.