VP of Technology

Balsam Brands•Boise, ID

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

The VP of Technology leads engineering across Balsam Brands’ Digital and Enterprise technology organizations, overseeing the Directors of Digital Technology and Enterprise Technology. The role owns a geographically distributed engineering organization spanning the Americas, Ireland, and Manila, and translates business priorities into an engineering strategy, investment roadmap, and measurable results. The VP is accountable for peak-season reliability in a high-stakes omnichannel retail environment and for the quality, reliability, and cost effectiveness of customer-facing and enterprise technology. A core priority is evolving the AI-enabled software development lifecycle (SDLC), from requirements and design through code, testing, release, and operations, while helping leaders and engineers use AI effectively. The VP partners closely with Product leadership to shape a joint engineering-product operating model, aligns investments with product and business leaders, and resolves cross-functional tradeoffs. Directors own planning and delivery within their areas, supported by clear decision rights and coaching from the VP. This full-time position reports to the Chief Technology Officer and follows a hybrid model, with in-office work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive software engineering leadership, including 3+ years leading at the Director level or above across multiple teams or technology domains.
Experience shaping engineering strategy and organizational design, developing leaders, and building accountable, collaborative teams across geographically distributed, globally operating organizations.
Demonstrated AI literacy and hands-on expertise using AI in engineering and leadership work, including critical evaluation of outputs and limitations and concrete improvements in work practices.
Experience enabling others to use AI through coaching, training, and reusable practices, and developing leaders who can guide adoption and sustain measurable improvements.
Strong technical judgment across digital commerce, enterprise applications, and integrations, with experience connecting architecture and modernization choices to business outcomes.
A record of improving delivery predictability and software quality while sustaining reliability, performance, and security of business-critical systems in a retail, eCommerce, or similarly high-availability consumer-facing environment.
Experience with modern software development practices, automation-first testing, CI/CD, observability, and incident management, and the ability to guide technical leaders and assess operational risk.
Experience managing engineering budgets, workforce and capacity plans, technology investments, and vendor relationships, with sound financial and commercial judgment.
Strong communication, influencing, and negotiation skills, including the ability to work with Product and business leaders, make tradeoffs explicit, and develop shared accountability for results.

Nice To Haves

Experience with peak-season operations and seasonal demand spikes.

Responsibilities

Lead the engineering organization toward business outcomes by promoting collaboration and alignment with organizational values, translating company initiatives into a clear vision, and supporting performance and professional development.
Coach and develop the Digital and Enterprise Directors, strengthen the engineering leadership bench, build succession plans, and set expectations for performance, delegation, and talent development.
Define a multi-year engineering strategy and investment roadmap with the CTO, Product, and business leaders, balancing customer and operational needs with modernization, technical debt, risk, and sustainable cost.
Own the evolution of the AI-enabled SDLC across Digital and Enterprise, including its roadmap, workflow and practice changes, disciplined experimentation, tool adoption, and measurable improvements in delivery flow, quality, and business outcomes.
Enable effective AI use through coaching, training, reusable workflows, and shared examples; partner with AI and security leaders on data protection, review and validation standards, and human accountability.
Set architectural direction across digital commerce and enterprise systems; establish integration, scalability, and maintainability standards; and guide major technology, platform, and build-versus-buy decisions.
Align priorities and engineering capacity across Digital and Enterprise, resolve shared dependencies and competing demands, and empower Directors to own quarterly planning, sizing, delegation, and delivery within their domains.
Establish a consistent engineering operating model and measures of business impact, delivery predictability, software quality, and service reliability; use them to identify systemic issues and hold leaders accountable for improvement.
Set expectations for secure, reliable operations and seasonal readiness, including observability, incident response, capacity planning, and tested disaster recovery and continuity plans.
Advance automation-first quality engineering, CI/CD, deployment practices, and continuous improvement across the SDLC, ensuring leaders have the capabilities and standards to deliver dependable releases.
Own engineering financial planning, resource allocation, and vendor oversight across Digital and Enterprise within approved budgets; shape workforce and sourcing plans, manage partner costs, set vendor performance expectations, and assess investments against business value and total cost of ownership.
Communicate engineering priorities, performance, investment choices, and material risks to executive and business stakeholders, building alignment on tradeoffs, ownership, and follow-through.

Benefits

Competitive compensation, including a cash-based incentive plan; salary is reviewed yearly and may be adjusted through the normal compensation review process.
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with 100% of monthly premiums covered for team members and 85% or more employer-paid premiums for other coverage tiers that include dependents.
Up to $2,000 annual funding toward HSA accounts.
Medical, transit, and dependent care flexible spending accounts.
Infertility coverage offered on all medical plans.
Generous parental leave program and flexible return options.
Company-paid life and AD&D insurance.
Company-paid short- and long-term disability insurance.
401(k) with dollar-for-dollar company match up to $4,000 per calendar year.
Employee Assistance Program and other mental health and wellness perks.
Paid holidays, annual shutdown week, PTO, and volunteer time off.
Paid five-week sabbatical leave after 10 years of employment.
Annual continuous learning benefit up to $1,000 per person, per fiscal year.
Up to $300 flexible reimbursement to support setup of a new team member’s work-from-home environment.
Team member merchandise discount.
Identity theft protection, subsidized parking, monthly wellness benefit, pet insurance, and accident and critical illness insurance.