About the Role
We are looking for a VP/SVP Engineer to lead and scale a high-performing, cross-functional engineering team. This is a pivotal leadership role for someone who combines deep technical credibility with exceptional people leadership — someone who takes extreme ownership, executes with urgency, and brings out the best in the teams around them.
The ideal candidate is execution-focused and hands-on enough to earn the respect of senior engineers, while also being a strategic partner to product leadership. They are humble, collaborative, and willing to both give and receive direction.
What You'll Do
- Lead & Develop Your Team: Manage, mentor, and grow a cross-functional engineering team (Backend focus). Foster a culture of high standards and continuous improvement.
- Own Technical Delivery: Drive end-to-end delivery of new features and products — from conception and architecture through to deployment and maintenance. Set and uphold high standards for code quality, testing, and reliability across the team.
- Partner with Product: Act as the primary engineering voice. Work closely with Product Managers, Designers, and other stakeholders to define the roadmap, scope technical tradeoffs, and ensure alignment on priorities and timelines.
- Architectural Oversight: Guide sound architectural decisions for scalable, secure, and high-performance systems that support a global retail platform. Proactively identify and resolve technical, process, or resource gaps before they become blockers.
- Operational Excellence: Champion engineering best practices: agile methodologies, code reviews, CI/CD, automated testing, and incident management. Hold the team accountable to quality and delivery velocity.
- Stakeholder Communication: Communicate clearly and proactively with stakeholders at all levels — from ICs to C-suite. Translate technical complexity into clear business language. Manage expectations on timelines, risks, and tradeoffs with integrity.
- Culture & Innovation: Contribute ideas, challenge assumptions, and encourage the team to experiment with new approaches. Be a visible culture carrier — embodying the values of ownership, diligence, and respect.
What We're Looking For
- 15+ years in software engineering, with 10+ years in engineering management or technical leadership roles.
- Proven track record of leading teams of 20+ engineers across multiple functions — you understand the scaling challenges firsthand.
- Experience managing globally distributed engineering teams across timezones and cultures.
- Strong technical foundation — you can contribute meaningfully to architectural discussions and earn the trust of senior engineers. Familiarity with Golang, Ruby on Rails, Postgres, Redis, and/or Kafka is a plus.
- Demonstrated ability to recruit, develop, and retain top engineering talent.
- Exceptional written and spoken English communication skills — you can articulate technical strategy clearly to engineers and business stakeholders alike.
- Proficiency in spoken Mandarin or Cantonese. Cantonese or Mandarin as a primary language is strongly preferred.
- A genuine get-things-done mentality — you thrive in ambiguity, move fast, and don't wait to be told what to do.
- Humble, collaborative, and open to feedback — you lead by example and hold yourself to the same standards you set for others.
Strongly Preferred
- Experience in fintech, or financial services — you understand the domain and its stakes.
- Experience working at a high-growth startup or scale-up where speed and quality must coexist.
- A track record of building engineering culture from the ground up — not just inheriting it.
Who You Are
- Execution-focused: you measure success by outcomes shipped, not plans written.
- Extreme ownership: problems don't fall through the cracks on your watch.
- Forthright: you speak up, contribute ideas, and push back constructively — you don't just nod along.
- Diligent: you follow through, sweat the details, and build trust through consistency.
- People-first: you care deeply about the growth and wellbeing of the people you lead.
- Culturally bridging: you thrive in a multicultural, fast-moving environment and help others do the same.