Vice President, Software Engineering

About the role

The VP of Software Engineering will lead global engineering teams tasked with transforming how the organization leverages technology. In this role, you will build robust, scalable, high availability platforms and products to deliver thoughtful customer experiences in a highly collaborative and fast-paced environment. This role will drive strategic direction and tactical execution on product initiatives with significant bottom-line impact. As a key leader of high-performing software engineering and technology teams, the VP will deliver cutting-edge innovation that transforms the animal healthcare industry. Essential Responsibilities: Accountable for new software product development, feature enhancements, and lifecycle management of existing commercial software products. Develop and maintain engineering roadmaps, architectural standards, and delivery models. Co-create the long-term vision for highly available, developer- and partner-facing platforms, products, and services. Participates in prioritization of technology initiatives and conjunction with peer technology leaders: accurately track initiative status, costs, and all projects related to engineering systems (hosting, partner agreements, training, systems, etc.) Collaborate with Product Management, IT, and external partners to deliver robust platform capabilities and differentiated user experiences. Lead and facilitate product engineering design, architecture and code review to ensure compliance with standards Translate complex technical concepts into clear, compelling narratives for executives, partners, and customers. Establish and evolve engineering processes, standards, and governance frameworks for global onshore and offshore teams. Provide hands-on technical leadership to a dynamic global team throughout the software development life cycle. Manage and appropriately escalate delivery impediments, risks, issues, and changes tied to the engineering initiatives to stakeholders Implement continuous improvement practices to achieve quality, reliability, scalability, and time-to-market goals. Lead production readiness, incident response maturity, and rapid issue of triage capabilities. Support critical operational escalations and transition activities as needed. Inspire customers, peers, and teammates to think outside the box to deliver high quality software and technology solutions. Identify systemic product engineering issues and implement preventative tooling and process improvements. Define and monitor engineering KPIs and performance metrics. In partnership with peers and CTO, responsible for the development of the annual department budget and capital expenditure plans in alignment with department projects and business goals Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement. All other duties as assigned. Required Knowledge and Skills 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including senior leadership of global teams A proven passion for building, leading and growing high performing teams in the development and rapid delivery of next-generation digital platforms and products A servant leader that has a history of creating a safe space and inclusive environment fostering diverse views and approaches from the team, coaching and mentoring them to thrive in a dynamic workplace Proven experience leading large-scale commercial software product development Strong background in modern software architecture, cloud-native platforms, and distributed systems Experience managing multi-region and offshore engineering organizations Demonstrated success delivering complex initiatives within budget and timeline constraints Passion for building highly resilient, scalable and available platforms, rich reusable foundational capabilities and seamless software engineering experience while focusing on strategic vision and technology roadmap delivery in an MVP / iterative fast paced approach Team player and energy amplifier. Flexible and adaptable to changing product and business priorities and technologies Proven ability to lead team development in an agile environment Strong technical knowledge of digital environments including mobile, web, apps, APIs, messaging, databases, Big Data, networks and their interactions The ability to seed and extend innovation into the greater organization to develop key talent, consistent with that of a leading technology company Education Bachelor's Degree in math/computer science/engineering/science discipline or equivalent wor