Vice President of Engineering - #2623170

VP of Engineering — Cologne (Hybrid) B2B SaaS · €20M+ funded · Mostly remote · 1–2 days/month in office

The role

We're a well-funded B2B startup on a mission — and we're looking for a VP of Engineering who still loves the craft. Not a career politician. Not a slide-deck leader. Someone who gets genuinely excited by great technology and isn't afraid to roll up their sleeves.

As VP of Engineering, you'll own the entire engineering function — leading multiple teams across product, platform, and infrastructure. You'll report directly to the founders and play a defining role in how we build, hire, and scale. This is a seat at the table, with the autonomy to make real decisions.

But here's what makes this role different: we don't want someone who's fully moved on from the tech. We want a leader who's close enough to the code to command respect, catch problems early, and keep the bar high — even as the team grows.

On flexibility: We're a remote-first team. You'll be based near Cologne and expected in the office once or twice a month — the rest is yours to manage. We care about output and ownership, not face time.

What you'll do

• Lead and grow a team of 15+ engineers across multiple squads, with clear scope to scale
• Set engineering direction — architecture, technical standards, tooling, and process
• Partner with Product and Design to ship things that actually matter to customers
• Recruit, retain, and develop exceptional engineering talent
• Stay hands-on enough to review critical decisions, unblock teams, and occasionally dive into the code
• Own the engineering roadmap and ensure consistent, high-quality delivery
• Build a culture where engineers do their best work

Who you are

• You've led engineering teams before — ideally at a B2B startup or scale-up — and you know what good looks like
• You're technically credible. You may not be writing production code daily, but you can hold a deep architectural debate, spot a bad abstraction, and earn the respect of strong engineers
• You get genuinely excited about technology — new tools, emerging patterns, better ways to build
• You're a natural people leader who also gets things done. You hire well, give honest feedback, and develop engineers into great ones
• You thrive in ambiguity and move with urgency. Startup pace suits you
• You communicate clearly — with engineers, founders, and customers alike
• You don't delegate your way out of hard problems. You're willing to get your hands dirty

Nice to have

• Experience in B2B SaaS — you understand the product dynamics and customer expectations
• You've scaled a team through a growth phase before, ideally Series A to B and beyond
• Familiarity with modern cloud-native infrastructure and development practices

A note on culture

We're past the scrappy phase but still very much a startup. You'll have real influence here — over how we build, how we hire, and how engineering fits into the broader company story. We want someone who sees that as exciting, not daunting.