VP of Engineering

Orbis

14h

About The Position

Orbis is hiring a Vice President of Engineering to lead its engineering organization through a significant growth period, including an anticipated tripling of the team over the next year. Reporting directly to the CTO, this senior engineering leader is accountable for the people, leadership, culture, delivery model, and engineering standards that turn the CTO’s technical vision and architecture direction into reliable delivery at scale. The role leads engineering directors and managers, develops the technical workforce, and builds an environment where engineers can do their best work while the company grows.

The position is intended for a leader who has previously scaled engineering in a small, fast-moving company and can introduce structure without bureaucracy. It calls for visible, trusted communication with engineers, executives, and government customers. The engineering workforce operates remotely across the United States and its territories, including Puerto Rico, so the leader must establish effective practices across time zones, with written and asynchronous communication as the default.

The Vice President partners with Product leadership to balance roadmap commitments, technical debt, architecture, and capacity across a growing portfolio. Working with the CTO, the role helps consolidate tools, development environments, and shared infrastructure across Rust, Go, TypeScript, and React codebases and AWS, GCP, and Cloudflare environments. The leader also establishes documentation, onboarding, training, shared practices, security and quality standards, and operating rhythms suited to customer requirements, including deployments to small form factor computers in constrained and disconnected environments. Travel is up to 25%, including to the McLean, Virginia headquarters, team gatherings, and customer sites.

Requirements

• 12 or more years of software engineering experience, including 5 or more years leading engineering organizations through other managers and at least 3 years at director level or above.
• Prior experience as an engineering leader at a small or early-stage company, such as one with fewer than 200 employees, including building structure while operating with limited process.
• Demonstrated people leadership, including developing managers, building diverse and high-performing teams, making difficult performance and staffing decisions, and retaining top talent through rapid growth.
• Proven success scaling an engineering organization through rapid growth, including building hiring pipelines and interview processes.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication, including setting direction, giving candid feedback, and explaining engineering trade-offs to executives, boards, and customers.
• Proven experience leading a fully remote engineering organization across multiple time zones, including setting schedules, core hours, meeting cadences, and on-call coverage.
• Hands-on technical background in modern software delivery, including cloud-native architecture, distributed systems, CI/CD, and DevSecOps.
• Production experience with at least one of Rust, Go, or TypeScript and at least one of AWS, GCP, or Cloudflare, with sufficient depth to make sound architecture decisions and earn senior engineers’ trust.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance.
• Ability to travel up to 25%.

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience across Rust, Go, TypeScript, and React, deployed on AWS, GCP, and Cloudflare, including Workers.
• Experience shipping software to small form factor computers and other edge hardware, including resource-constrained or disconnected deployments.
• Experience leading engineering for products delivered to the DoD, Intelligence Community, or allied governments, including accredited, air-gapped, or edge environments.
• Active TS/SCI clearance.
• Experience building or scaling data platforms, data integration, or AI/ML products in production.
• Experience leading toolchain consolidation, platform engineering, or developer-experience initiatives across multiple teams.
• Experience managing an engineering budget and contributing to company-level strategy.
• Advanced degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the engineering leadership team, including directors and managers; set expectations, coach leaders, and build a scalable leadership bench.
• Own engineering workforce planning, hiring strategy, and interview processes, applying the career ladder consistently while scaling the team without lowering hiring standards.
• Make timely and fair performance and staffing decisions and support retention of a high-caliber workforce.
• Define engineering working norms, career paths, recognition, and feedback loops, and protect the culture as the organization grows.
• Set direction and context for the engineering organization and represent engineering to executives, the board as needed, and customers.
• Translate technical trade-offs into business and mission terms.
• Partner with Product leadership to turn priorities into predictable delivery while balancing roadmap commitments, technical debt, architecture, and capacity.
• Establish metrics and operating rhythms that communicate engineering performance and accountability.
• Work with the CTO to rationalize the toolchain, development environments, and shared infrastructure across the company's codebases and cloud environments.
• Establish documentation standards, shared engineering practices, onboarding, and training so organizational knowledge is not concentrated with individuals.
• Ensure engineering practices meet customer security, compliance, and reliability standards, including for constrained and disconnected deployments on small form factor computers.
• Lead remote engineering operations across U.S. time zones and territories by setting core collaboration hours, meeting cadences, and on-call rotations, with written asynchronous communication as the default.
• Partner with the CTO, Product, Security, People, Business Operations, and IT on budget, headcount, vendor decisions, and company-level planning.
• Travel up to 25% to the McLean, Virginia headquarters, team gatherings, and customer sites.

Benefits

• Competitive retirement matching.
• PTO policy that encourages employees to take real time off.
• Comprehensive benefits package designed to meet the needs of employees and their families; full details are shared with candidates after an initial HR conversation.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive