VP, Software Engineering

About the role To thrive as a company and meet our impact goals, we must cultivate a culture of high-performance. You can read about our culture principles here . We know managers are often the single-largest driver of employee satisfaction and growth, and our talent is our biggest asset. Because of that, we’ve identified consistent expectations for all of Guild’s people managers — helping you know what to expect from your experience here. If you are an Internal Candidate, please via our Internal Job Board . ---- Guild is hiring a VP of Engineering to lead our product, platform, and foundational engineering teams. In this role, you’ll own how these teams plan, build, and ship — balancing reliable, efficient delivery with the growth bets that move the business. We’re looking for a seasoned engineering leader who’s energized by leading at this level, comfortable navigating ambiguity, and focused on driving to clear outcomes. Responsibilities - Set technical and organizational direction across product, platform, and foundational engineering — turning Guild’s business strategy into a clear roadmap and putting your teams’ effort where it matters most. - Own how the organization plans and ships — estimation, release readiness, and incident response — improving predictability and throughput with lightweight process, and clearing the blockers that slow teams down. - Balance shipping solid, reliable software with placing growth bets — deciding when to harden core systems and pay down tech debt, and when to fund the experiments that open new growth for members and employer partners. - Own the internal platform and foundational engineering — DevOps, d services, CI/CD, and testing — so product teams can ship without wrestling the plumbing and the systems underneath stay reliable and secure. - Lead through ambiguity to outcomes — bring clarity to messy problems, decide with incomplete information, and keep teams focused on measurable impact as priorities shift. - Develop leaders and talent — coach and grow multiple Directors and Engineering Managers, set clear expectations, give frequent and actionable feedback, and create stretch opportunities so your people do the best work of their careers. - Build an inclusive, sustainable engineering culture — psychologically safe teams, a modern and AI-forward way of working, and a pace people can keep. - Partner across the company — work closely with Product, Design, and Data & AI engineering leaders, and represent engineering with executives and key vendors (e.g., AWS, Auth0) to align technical investment with company priorities. Qualifications You are a strong fit for this role if you have: - Proven ability to lead a multi-team engineering organization at the VP level — setting direction across several domains and owning outcomes across both product and platform engineering. You’re energized by leading well at this level and the scope it carries. - Demonstrated people-leadership as a manager of managers — you set clear standards, drive execution and remove blockers, grow talent through frequent, actionable feedback, and build psychologically safe, inclusive teams. - Comfort operating in ambiguity and driving to outcomes — you simplify complexity, make practical trade-offs with incomplete information, and orient teams around measurable impact rather than activity. - Deep technical credibility — you can weigh architectural decisions on their merits and earn the trust of senior engineers — plus the judgment to balance reliable, cost-aware systems with room for growth bets. - Strong cross-functional partnership — you build trust with Product, Design, and peer engineering leaders, and explain technical strategy and trade-offs clearly to both engineers and executives. Preferred Competencies - Experience scaling consumer or B2B2C growth-product engineering and/or internal developer platforms in a high-growth environment. - Familiarity with a modern AWS serverless stack (e.g., Lambda, Auror