VP of Product Engineering

Clever•San Francisco, CA

2d•$325,000 - $375,000

About The Position

Clever is seeking a Vice President of Product Engineering to lead five product engineering teams of about 40 engineers building the identity, single sign-on, and portal products used by school districts, as well as APIs used by education technology application partners. The teams build across the full stack on a container-based microservices architecture in AWS using Go, Node, and TypeScript. The role reports to the CTO and partners as a peer with the VP of Product, sharing ownership of product strategy and the engineering roadmap. It is a visible technical leadership position that engages with district CIOs and application-partner CTOs. The VP will ensure that products for districts and application partners work together while balancing customer needs with the scale, resilience, and security students depend on. Success includes a jointly owned Product and Engineering roadmap, predictable delivery on important customer work, strong managers across the teams, and AI incorporated into how teams plan, build, test, and ship. The role will lead AI adoption across the software development lifecycle, set technical direction and architecture, engage with complex systems, and represent Clever in customer business reviews, industry events, and education technology standards groups.

Requirements

Software engineering background with the ability to review designs, challenge architecture decisions, and earn the respect of senior engineers.
Experience leading a multi-team engineering organization of roughly 30 or more engineers through managers, including hiring and developing managers and building an inclusive, high-performing culture.
Experience leading an engineering organization in applying AI across the software development lifecycle, with demonstrable results.
Experience building and operating external, customer-facing SaaS products with high availability and resilience requirements.
Experience partnering with a product leader as a peer to set strategy and roadmap.
Experience engaging directly with customers’ technical decision makers, such as CIOs, CTOs, or IT leaders, and translating their input into product and architecture decisions.
Ability to travel one to two times per quarter for company and customer meetings.
Ability to explain technical strategy and tradeoffs clearly to executives, customers, and engineers.
10 or more years as an engineering leader, including at least 3 years at director level or higher.

Nice To Haves

Experience building SSO, identity lifecycle, directory, rostering, or access management products.
Experience building platforms, developer ecosystems, or APIs used by other companies.
Experience building products for customers outside the U.S., including adapting them to local data privacy rules, languages, and regional requirements.
Experience in edtech or building for K-12 or higher education institutions.
Hands-on familiarity with AWS, Go, Node, TypeScript, and container-based microservices.
Experience scaling a platform to millions of daily users in a regulated industry such as education, healthcare, or finance.
Participation in industry standards bodies or representing an engineering organization through talks, writing, or advisory boards.

Responsibilities

Lead five product engineering teams comprising about 40 engineers.
Own engineering’s contribution to product strategy and jointly develop the product and engineering roadmap with the VP of Product.
Ensure products for school districts and application partners fit together while meeting customer needs and requirements for scale, resilience, and security.
Lead the application of AI across the software development lifecycle, including design, coding, testing, review, and release.
Set technical direction and architecture for Clever’s products and engage with complex systems to keep them sound.
Hire and develop managers and build an inclusive, high-performing engineering culture.
Partner with Infrastructure, Data, and Security teams.
Work directly with school district and application-partner technical leaders and staff, incorporating customer input into product and architecture decisions.
Represent Clever in customer business reviews, industry events, and education technology standards groups.