Head of Engineering, Foundations

AngelList

San Francisco, CA

Who this role is best for

A natural match if you have experience leading engineering teams in financial infrastructure.

Best fit for

Candidates with experience leading engineering teams in financial systems and a history of building scalable infrastructure.
— “12+ years in engineering, including 5+ leading teams.”
Individuals who have designed and shipped end-to-end systems, especially those involving real money movement and security.
— “You've designed and shipped systems end to end, and you want to keep doing that while growing a team.”
Candidates who have set engineering standards for reliability and operability in high-stakes environments.
— “Set the engineering standards for reliability, operability, and architectural coherence.”

Things to consider

In-office presence is required for most roles, with limited exceptions for remote contributors.
— “we work from the office at least two days per week (Tuesdays and either Wednesday or Thursday).”

How to stand out

Emphasize your hands-on contributions to infrastructure systems in your resume and interviews.
— “As a Head of Engineering here, you'd be expected to personally ship, not just direct.”
Highlight your experience in defining and setting technical standards for large-scale systems.
— “You author the standard. You have a clear point of view on what good infrastructure looks like and set it rather than inheriting it.”
Showcase your ability to lead and develop senior engineers who influence other teams.
— “Leverage through senior engineers. You've developed staff and principal ICs who make other teams better.”

Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · CompanyLevel · Senior

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

lead a small team of high-performing engineers
build the platform the whole engineering org runs on
set engineering standards for reliability and architectural coherence

Typical background

12+ years in engineering, including 5+ leading teams

Skills & requirements

Required

Hiring And Coaching EngineersBuilding Developer PlatformsAutomating Infrastructure As CodeSetting Engineering StandardsOperating Consequential Infrastructure

Preferred

KubernetesAWSInfrastructure-as-code Experience

About the role

Original posting from AngelList via Lever

Why Join AngelList
We’re solving some of the hardest problems in venture capital and private markets. You’ll work with a team that values precision, urgency, and long-term thinking. If you want to shape how startups are funded and built, this is the place.
About AngelList
We exist to accelerate innovation by increasing the number of successful startups in the world. We do this by building the financial infrastructure that makes it easier for more people to invest in world-changing companies.
AngelList is the nexus of venture capital and the startup community. We support $171B+ in assets and have powered investments into over 13,000 startups—over 300 of which are unicorns. Today, 57% of top-tier U.S. VC deals involve investors on AngelList. While our scale is large, our ambition is larger.
If you're excited to build the future of private markets, come build with us.
About the Role:
$200B+ in assets and $90B in money movement run on infrastructure that about 50 engineers and a growing number of agents build on top of. We're hiring a Head of Engineering, Foundations to lead the team that owns it. This role reports directly to the CEO and has company-level scope.
Part of what this team owns is new. Agents are becoming first-class users of our own systems, and nobody has a settled answer for what a platform owes a non-human user: sandboxing, audit trails, rollback, all against systems that move real money. You'd be deciding how that works here.
As a Head of Engineering here, you'd be expected to personally ship, not just direct.
Responsibilities::
Hire, coach, and grow a small team of high-performing engineers, and develop the staff and principal engineers who carry technical standards into other teams.
Build the platform the whole engineering org runs on: developer platforms, deployment pipelines, observability, and developer tooling.
Automate infrastructure as code on Kubernetes and AWS, using Pulumi, cdk8s, and ArgoCD.
Build the harnesses agents execute inside, including sandboxing, audit trails, and rollback against systems that move real money.
Set the engineering standards for reliability, operability, and architectural coherence, and sequence the quality work that keeps teams shipping quickly over time.
What we’re looking for::
12+ years in engineering, including 5+ leading teams.
A builder who leads. You write clean, well-tested code and have designed and shipped systems end to end, and you want to keep doing that while growing a team.
Leverage through senior engineers. You've developed staff and principal ICs who make other teams better.
Systems judgment. You've operated consequential infrastructure before. Kubernetes, AWS, and infrastructure-as-code experience helps, but judgment matters more than familiarity with our exact stack.
Developer experience as a product. You design infrastructure for the engineers using it rather than just operating it.
You author the standard. You have a clear point of view on what good infrastructure looks like and set it rather than inheriting it.
Working Here
If you don’t meet every requirement above, we still encourage you to apply. We value complementary strengths and operators who learn by doing.
We operate out of hubs in New York City and San Francisco. For most roles on those teams, we work from the office at least two days per week (Tuesdays and either Wednesday or Thursday). Exceptions may be made for exceptional individual contributor candidates in other locations.
Compensation:The compensation for this role consists of a competitive base salary, benefits, and equity package. The base salary for this role is $280,000+ annually but actual will vary based on a number of factors including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Full details about our Total Rewards package will be provided during the recruitment process.
Benefits:We support your life both in and outside of work.
Explore our benefits
Learn about Funders & Founders
What Guides Us:At AngelList, we are united in our purpose to accelerate innovation and build the future of private markets. Our beliefs and values shape what we work on and how we create impact. If the below resonate, we'd love to have you with us.
Our beliefs
Our values & leadership expectations
AngelList is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Source: AngelList careers (Lever)