VP, Engineering

Skillz Inc•San Francisco, CA

2h•Hybrid

About The Position

This is an opportunity to shape the future of one of the world's leading competitive mobile gaming platforms. As Vice President of Engineering at Skillz, you will define the technical vision and lead the engineering organization responsible for the platform powering millions of competitive gaming experiences. Reporting directly to the General Manager, you'll serve as a key member of the executive leadership team, partnering across Product, Data Science, Finance, and Operations to influence company strategy while building the technology that drives our next phase of growth. You will lead a global engineering organization spanning the US and Bangalore, with responsibility for Product Engineering, Platform, Infrastructure, and Data. Beyond delivering products, you'll build and inspire high-performing teams, cultivate a culture of technical excellence, and drive the architectural decisions that enable Skillz to scale with reliability, speed, and innovation. This role is ideal for a seasoned engineering executive who thrives at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and people leadership and who is energized by solving complex engineering challenges in gaming, distributed systems, real-time services, payments, and platform scalability.

Requirements

12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering managers or senior engineering leaders at the VP or Senior Director level within a high-growth technology company.
Gaming industry experience is required, with a genuine passion for gaming and a strong understanding of player experiences.
Proven track record of building and scaling engineering organizations supporting consumer-facing products or platforms at significant scale.
Hands-on background in distributed systems, system architecture, and mobile backend platforms.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience with real-time systems, payments, fraud prevention, trust and safety, or high-availability platforms is strongly preferred.
Experience in a publicly traded or late-stage venture-backed technology company is preferred.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the long-term technical vision and multi-year engineering roadmap, aligning technology investments with business strategy, product priorities, and company growth objectives.
Lead the global engineering organization across Product Engineering, Platform, Infrastructure, and Data, building an organization known for technical excellence, operational discipline, and high-quality execution.
Build, mentor, and develop exceptional engineering leaders and teams, fostering a culture of ownership, accountability, innovation, and continuous learning.
Partner closely with Product Management, Data Science, Finance, and executive leadership to shape company strategy, prioritize investments, and deliver impactful customer experiences.
Champion modern engineering practices including cloud-native architecture, CI/CD, observability, incident response, security-by-design, and developer productivity to improve engineering velocity and platform reliability.
Drive architectural decisions that ensure the Skillz platform continues to scale securely and efficiently while supporting new products and evolving business needs.
Lead execution across a globally distributed engineering organization, proactively identifying delivery risks, removing obstacles, and ensuring successful outcomes for critical initiatives.
Serve as the executive engineering voice, communicating complex technical topics clearly to senior leadership and helping translate business strategy into engineering execution.
Continuously improve engineering operations, establishing metrics, processes, and best practices that enable teams to deliver with predictability, quality, and speed.