Vice President, Engineering

Role Overview

Patch is seeking a hands-on Vice President of Engineering to lead software engineering, ad technology, Data, and Site Quality. You will be Patch’s senior technology executive, reporting to the CEO, partnering with Product and executive leadership, and owning engineering delivery.

Responsibilities

• Engineering strategy & delivery: Set technical direction, make capacity/risk visible, and deliver agreed priorities with the CEO and functional leaders.
• Architecture & operations: Guide modern and legacy systems across search, content delivery, publishing, performance, reliability, security, and platform migration. Step in when production incidents require senior judgment.
• AI-enabled development: Help engineers use AI to prototype and ship faster; define and execute a practical AI technology vision; safely move AI ideas into production.
• Engineering organization: Hire, coach, and manage a distributed team; raise standards for code quality, QA, automated testing, observability, and release confidence.
• Data & technical stewardship: Lead data integrity and access practices; oversee platform cost and major vendors/infrastructure; manage a multi-million-dollar operating portfolio.

Requirements

• Deep software engineering leadership experience, with strong JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Next.js, and Node.js.
• Proven ability to lead engineering teams that work effectively with a separate Product function.
• Hands-on track record prototyping, shipping, and operating high-traffic digital products.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools and the judgment to productionize safely.
• Strong SQL and data skills; experience with AWS and distributed/event-driven architectures, plus comfort with meaningful legacy systems.
• Demonstrated people leadership (hiring, coaching, performance, org decisions) and strong executive communication with CEOs/Boards and cross-functional partners.
• A builder mindset: curious, direct, low-ego, and willing to inspect code/data/workflows when needed.

Nice to Have / Environment

• Experience with Drupal/PHP and ad/data platforms.
• Familiarity with observability/reliability practices and incident leadership in production.
• Exposure to tools such as Claude, Bolt, Replit, and Google Stitch.

Remote / Availability

• Remote-first with distributed teams across time zones.
• Flexibility to support significant production incidents.