Vice President, Software
About The Position
Saildrone is seeking a Vice President of Software to lead the software organization powering our autonomous maritime platform. Reporting directly to the CEO, this is a senior role that partners closely with the CEO to define, evolve, and execute Saildrone’s software strategy in support of the company’s mission and business objectives. You will own the execution and organizational leadership of the software ecosystem — from onboard autonomy and vehicle control to data pipelines, analytics, ML/ AI, cyber security and our customer-facing product and API eco system — while working with the CEO to align software priorities with company strategy. This is a highly collaborative executive role for a strong leader who thrives at the intersection of vision, execution, and real-world operational systems in a national security and defense environment
Requirements
- 15+ years of experience in software engineering, including significant leadership of complex organizations.
- Proven success delivering mission-critical, distributed, autonomous, or data-intensive systems at scale.
- Comfortable co-setting direction while independently driving execution.
- Deep technical fluency across modern software architectures, autonomy, data systems, and real-time or embedded environments.
- Executive presence with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Responsibilities
- Strategic Partnership Partner directly with the CEO to co-create Saildrone’s long-term software vision, strategy, and priorities. Provide clear, candid input on tradeoffs between speed, capability, reliability, risk, and scalability. Ensure software strategy remains tightly aligned with company objectives, customer needs, the in-house electro-mechanical implementation and operational realities.
- Organizational & People Leadership Lead and scale a multidisciplinary software organization spanning autonomy, embedded systems, ML/AI, cloud, data infrastructure, and applications. Build and mentor a strong leadership bench across directors, managers, and senior technical leaders. Establish a culture of accountability, ownership, collaboration, and engineering excellence. Recruit, retain, and develop world-class software talent in a highly competitive market.
- Technical Execution & Delivery Own the end-to-end software lifecycle from system architecture through development, deployment, and sustained operations. Ensure on-time delivery of secure, reliable, high-performance software software products, critical for operations of defense-grade weaponized platforms. Drive adoption of modern engineering practices including automated testing, observability, and security-by-design. Oversee and help guide architectural decisions across the stack, including onboard autonomy, edge computing, and large-scale data platforms, on and off our platforms.
- Cross-Functional Leadership Partner closely with Hardware, Product, TPM, Security, and Operations leaders to deliver tightly integrated solutions. Support go-to-market and customer engagements by translating software capabilities into differentiated mission outcomes.
Benefits
- Paid time off, including vacation, bereavement, jury duty, sick time and parental leave
- Comprehensive and competitive medical, dental and vision plans, and HSA with employer matching.
- Company sponsored life insurance
- Stock Options
- Annual stipend for continued learning and development
- Quarterly company BBQs at our Alameda HQ (bring your friends and family!)
- Free Bay Area Public Transportation via AlamedaTMA with the BayPass Clipper Card
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Executive
Education Level
No Education Listed
Number of Employees
251-500 employees
