VP of Engineering

Socket•San Francisco, CA

4d•Remote

About The Position

Socket is seeking a VP of Engineering to scale the engineering organization from 40 to 80+ people while maintaining velocity, code quality, and culture. This role requires a leader who can serve as both an operational and technical leader, designing an effective operating system for the organization, building technical leadership, eliminating operational friction, and owning delivery on major cross-team initiatives. The position involves staying hands-on technically to maintain credibility and partnering on technical strategy. The VP of Engineering will work directly with the Founder & CEO and will shape the team's operations for the next three years. The ideal candidate has experience scaling engineering organizations, building operating systems, possesses deep technical depth, has managed complex cross-functional programs, a track record of moving fast and shipping, works well with founders, and cares about culture as much as execution. Experience with security or supply chain security is a plus.

Requirements

Scaled an engineering organization up to 100 people, understanding what breaks and how to fix it at different scales.
Built and executed operating systems for large organizations, with experience in planning processes, dependency management, sprint cycles, and risk surfacing.
Deep hands-on technical depth, coding regularly, and capable of sophisticated conversations about architecture, distributed systems, and trade-offs.
Managed complex cross-functional programs, with concrete examples of coordinating 4+ teams on major initiatives.
A track record of moving fast and shipping, with the ability to point to significant shipped projects, their timelines, team size, and impact.
Works exceptionally well with founders and hands-on leadership, pushing back thoughtfully and complementing strengths.
Cares about culture as much as execution, believing that how you build is as important as what you build.

Nice To Haves

Experience with security or supply chain security.
Shipped security features or worked on infrastructure security.
Understands why the security problem matters.

Responsibilities

Scale the engineering organization from 40 to 80+ people while protecting the velocity, code quality, and culture that makes Socket work.
Own two intertwined responsibilities: be the operational leader who keeps the organization unblocked and coordinated, AND be the technical leader who shapes architecture decisions and keeps the team executing with urgency.
Design an operating system that actually works, including planning cadence, sprint structure, and decision-making processes that are lightweight and rigorous.
Document how Socket makes decisions so new engineers understand the culture.
Build technical leadership across the organization, creating weekly coordination rhythms and defining clear growth paths for engineers.
Eliminate operational friction by identifying and solving the five biggest bottlenecks slowing the team down.
Own delivery on major cross-team initiatives, defining success, tracking progress, managing dependencies, and escalating risks.
Keep hands-on technical credibility by staying close to the code, architecture decisions, mentoring leads, and unblocking hard problems.
Partner on technical strategy, helping articulate architecture direction and creating lightweight architecture review processes.
Establish culture and feedback loops that scale, including running skip-level 1-on-1s and instituting monthly retrospectives.
Build a feedback culture where code review is learning and architecture reviews strengthen decisions.