VP, Engineering

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source, delivering secure and production-ready builds of open source software. They are seeking a VP of Engineering to lead a new product engineering organization, focusing on rapidly bringing new products to market while building and scaling teams that operate efficiently and effectively.

Responsibilities:

• Lead engineering efforts to take new product definitions from concept through design, implementation, and launch
• Build the team, processes, and architecture to scale successful products
• Embed AI deeply into how your teams operate
• Build your organization from the ground up
• Own quarterly outcome commitments for your organization
• Champion servant leadership, retention, and career development across your organization
• Partner closely with Product Management, Sales, Customer Success, and other functions
• Provide strategic technical guidance and ensure sound architectural decisions across your teams
• Build a high-performance hiring engine for your organization
• Own and manage the engineering budget for your organization
• Represent Chainguard externally as a thought leader in open source, cloud-native security, and engineering leadership

Requirements:

• 15+ years of progressive software engineering and engineering leadership experience, including significant time leading organizations, and capable of managing a 50+ person engineering organization
• Proven track record of taking new products from zero to one — you've built teams and shipped products in greenfield environments, not just maintained existing ones
• Experience managing Directors and/or Senior Managers (manager-of-managers experience required)
• Track record of building and scaling engineering organizations at high-growth, venture-backed technology companies
• Hands-on experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude Code, Copilot, or similar) in your own workflows, and a demonstrated ability to drive AI adoption across engineering teams. You see AI as an accelerant for engineering velocity and you've operationalized that belief
• Deep understanding of cloud-native technologies, open source ecosystems, containers, Kubernetes, and software supply chain security
• Strong organizational design instincts — you know how to structure small, fast teams for autonomy, velocity, and cross-functional alignment, especially in early-stage product environments
• Demonstrated servant leadership style with a strong emphasis on retention, career development, and internal promotion
• Excellent communication and executive presence — you can communicate the company's vision and strategy to internal and external audiences with clarity and conviction
• Comfort with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and making high-stakes decisions quickly. You have a bias for action and a strong sense for when to invest deeper vs. move on
• Experience operating in a fully remote, globally distributed engineering organization
• Ideally based in the US, Canada, or the UK