VP of Engineering, Applications (Founding Team)

Type of employment: Permanent, Full-time
Work model: Fully remote (United States or Canada)
Ideal experience: Senior Engineering Leadership, Product Engineering, AI Applications

Why join this opportunity?

Our client is an early-stage, well-funded AI startup building a next-generation consumer AI platform designed to help people automate everyday tasks, workflows, and errands through intelligent, real-world task execution.

This is a rare opportunity to join as a founding engineering leader and help define both the product and the engineering organization from the very beginning. You'll work alongside an experienced leadership team in a fast-paced, high-trust environment where ownership, curiosity, and execution are highly valued.

What you'll do

Lead the application engineering strategy across backend, mobile, and desktop platforms.
Build, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of senior software engineers.
Define the technical architecture for AI-powered product workflows, APIs, and client applications.
Partner closely with machine learning leadership to translate AI capabilities into reliable, production-ready user experiences.
Drive engineering excellence across system design, scalability, reliability, security, and performance.
Establish clear ownership, engineering standards, and development practices that enable teams to move quickly while maintaining long-term quality.
Oversee production readiness, including observability, monitoring, resilience, privacy, and operational excellence.
Balance rapid product delivery with thoughtful technical decision-making and architectural consistency.

What we're looking for

Significant experience leading high-performing application or product engineering teams.
Strong hands-on software engineering background building and shipping production backend systems.
Experience delivering AI-powered products and integrating machine learning capabilities into customer-facing applications.
Deep understanding of distributed systems, APIs, application architecture, and modern software design.
Ability to lead across backend, mobile, and desktop engineering organizations.
Proven track record of making high-impact technical decisions in fast-moving environments.
Strong leadership, communication, and mentoring skills.
A builder's mindset with a bias toward ownership, execution, and continuous improvement.

Why this role?

Founding engineering leadership opportunity at a well-funded AI startup.
Build and scale the engineering organization from the ground up.
Help shape a next-generation consumer AI platform from zero to scale.
Fully remote across the United States and Canada.
Small, high-calibre engineering team with direct access to leadership.
High-trust, flexible work environment.
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
401(k) with employer match (U.S.).
Visa sponsorship available where applicable.
Opportunity to influence product strategy, technical direction, hiring, and engineering culture from day one.