Head of Product Engineering

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Germany, +1 more country.

📋 Description

• Take full ownership of engineering responsibilities, encompassing technical decisions, workflow pace, organization, and leadership of personnel.

• Collaborate directly with the co-founder and CTO.

• Deliver a significant AI feature in partnership with the team within the first month.

• Enhance tools, code review, testing, task allocation, and development methods to minimize cycle times.

• Initiate regular one-on-one meetings with engineers, concentrating on productivity, quality, and the use of AI.

• Manage engineering recruitment and create a process that functions independently without founder intervention.

• Determine team structure and identify which lead roles to recruit or nurture.

• Oversee the engineering organization and its technical strategy.

• Advance testing automation, code and security assessments, and quality standards.

• Manage team composition, levels, performance evaluations, hiring strategy, managers, and technical leads.

• Continue to engage with the team to maintain a hands-on perspective.

• Promote AI integration within engineering workflows and administrative processes.

• Expand the engineering team from 8 engineers and 2 product designers to approximately 16 within a year.

• Uphold zero-bug standards while facilitating swift, high-quality deliveries.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience as a software engineer, with at least 6 years leading engineering teams and 2 years managing managers or technical leads.

• Experience in scaling an engineering team to 15 or more at a VC-backed startup, having personally conducted most of the hiring.

• Proven track record of establishing hiring processes, defining levels, conducting performance reviews, and creating salary structures from the ground up.

• Experience in deploying AI features to production, including retrieval, RAG, and agentic workflows.

• Familiarity with building and deploying solutions using Claude Code and Cursor in actual production environments.

• A strong senior or principal engineering background prior to moving into management; capable of contributing to design reviews, debugging, or feature development.

• Experience in building products from the ground up at a startup or scaling a team through transitional challenges.

• Availability to work in the European timezone (CET/CEST); ideally located in EMEA, particularly Germany or the UK.

• Possess a refined product sensibility and uphold high standards for quality.

• Capable of providing direct feedback and navigating challenging performance discussions.

• Demonstrated proactive written communication skills within a remote team environment.

• Nice to have: Experience growing an engineering organization beyond 30 members.

• Nice to have: Experience leading an engineering team through an ISO 27001 or SOC 2 audit.

• Nice to have: Experience leading engineering for a B2B SaaS product transitioning from SMB to mid-market.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity: Competitive package — everyone shares in ownership.

• Development budget: €1,000 annually.

• Workspace: Support for remote workspace and access to co-working facilities.

• Holidays: 26 vacation days plus local public holidays.

• Health insurance: Comprehensive health coverage.

• Annual retreat.

• Technology: Provision of a MacBook, monitors, headphones — the latest equipment.

• Remote work: Fully remote with a genuine virtual office environment in Gather.