VP of R&D

LeapXpert • London, CA

2d • Remote

About The Position

We are hiring a Vice President of R&D to lead and scale our engineering and product development organization across the region in EMEA and APAC. This executive will own delivery, architecture, technical strategy, and people leadership for our teams while partnering closely with global product, customer, and commercial stakeholders. Given LeapXpert’s positioning in regulated enterprise communications, this role requires strong experience in secure SaaS platforms, compliance-grade infrastructure, and enterprise-scale product delivery.

Requirements

• 10–15+ years in engineering leadership; 5+ years at VP or Director level.
• Experience scaling B2B SaaS in fintech, compliance-tech, communications, or cybersecurity.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and cloud-native architecture (AWS/Azure/GCP).
• Demonstrated experience building teams of 40+ engineers.
• Strong exposure to regulated industries (financial services preferred).
• Experience operating in multi-region organizations (US/EMEA/APAC).

Nice To Haves

• Ability to work across multiple time zones and manage a global team.
• Experience in a fast-paced SaaS environment, driving operational improvements.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute UK R&D roadmap aligned with global product strategy.
• Oversee system architecture for scalability, security, and reliability.
• Ensure best-in-class engineering standards (CI/CD, DevOps maturity, observability, SRE principles).
• Drive AI-enabled innovation where applicable to platform evolution.
• Own quarterly and annual engineering OKRs.
• Ensure predictable release cycles and enterprise-grade SLAs.
• Improve development velocity while maintaining compliance and quality.
• Build and scale high-performing engineering teams (Backend, Frontend, QA, DevOps).
• Develop Directors and Engineering Managers.
• Establish succession planning and strong technical culture.
• Recruit senior technical talent in UK/EU markets.
• Partner with Product, Customer Success, Security, and Sales Engineering.
• Support enterprise deals requiring technical depth.
• Engage with strategic customers on roadmap and architecture discussions.
• Ensure alignment with data privacy, financial compliance, and regional regulatory standards.
• Strengthen SOC2 / ISO/enterprise security posture (as applicable).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed