VP Developer Experience

Workday•Pleasanton, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The VP Developer Experience will lead a geographically dispersed team that serves as the central coordination hub for improving the end-to-end developer journey across our organization. This is a crucial leadership position responsible for driving the necessary organizational transformation within the broader engineering organization. Key areas of focus include: AI Tooling and Organizational Structure: Analyzing the impact of AI tooling across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) on our organizational structure (e.g., single points of contact (SPOC), organizational layers, token budgets). AI-First Process Adaptation: Reworking and adapting our SDLC processes to thrive in an AI-first environment.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in software development, developer advocacy, or a similar technical leadership role, with a significant portion focused on enterprise SaaS platforms.
5+ years in a leadership/management capacity.
Deep understanding of SDK development, and a broad range of programming languages and development tools.
Familiarity with cloud platforms and CI/CD practices.
A genuine passion for developers and a strong empathy for their needs and challenges. Proven ability to think like a developer.
Ability to develop and execute a long-term vision for developer experience, aligning it with business objectives.
Exceptional written, verbal, and presentation skills. Ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Proven ability to build, mentor, and motivate high-performing technical teams.
Strong interpersonal skills and a proven ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams.
Experience using data and metrics to measure success and drive decision-making.

Nice To Haves

Experience building or significantly contributing to a successful developer platform for an enterprise SaaS product.
Active participation in developer communities and open-source projects.
Advanced degree in Computer Science or a related field.

Responsibilities

Develop comprehensive DevEx strategy: Create and execute a holistic developer experience roadmap that spans organizational boundaries and aligns with business objectives
Establish organizational presence: Build the Developer Experience function from the ground up, defining its role, scope, and value proposition across the organization
Drive AI and automation integration: Lead the adoption of AI development tools, intelligent automation techniques, and end-to-end process optimization to systematically eliminate friction
Champion data-driven decision making: Implement measurement frameworks and analytics to continuously assess and improve developer experience health
Map existing DevEx landscape: Conduct comprehensive assessment to identify all current developer experience initiatives across application development, design systems, platform development, CI/CD pipelines, environments, and other specialized teams
Establish coordination framework: Create cross-functional collaboration processes to align existing teams and eliminate duplicated efforts
Identify critical gaps: Analyze the complete developer journey from onboarding to production deployment to prioritize highest-impact improvement opportunities
Build stakeholder relationships: Develop strong partnerships with engineering leadership, product teams, platform teams, and other key stakeholders
Build and lead DevEx team: Recruit, hire, and develop a team of DevEx professionals including analysts, coordinators, and developer advocates
Establish operating model: Create sustainable processes for ongoing gap analysis, project coordination, and continuous improvement
Implement feedback systems: Design and deploy mechanisms for collecting, analyzing, and acting on developer feedback across all touchpoints
Drive measurable outcomes: Lead initiatives to achieve specific targets including improved developer velocity, reduced onboarding time, and increased satisfaction scores
Define DevEx standards: Establish organization-wide standards for developer tooling, documentation, and processes
Create best practice frameworks: Develop and maintain guidelines for developer experience improvements across all teams
Ensure consistency: Drive coherent user experience across different development tools and platforms
Foster continuous improvement: Build culture of ongoing optimization and innovation in developer experience