Vice President of Engineering

Language and locationFluent English and Dutch. Based in Netherlands. Comfortable with occasional travelEngineering leadership foundation12+ years in software engineering.5+ years leading multi-team B2B SaaS organisations.Has owned delivery, architecture, security and operations as a single line.AI-native delivery, demonstrablyHas led a credible shift to AI-led delivery, with evidence:Agentic workflows across the SDLC: code from specs, test creation, PR review, deployment.Codified playbooks the team follows.A productivity shift proven against whatever metrics the organisation uses.Understands the J-curve (productivity drops before it rises) and has coached teams through it.Reinvests the gain into discovery and new bets, not just features.Moving toward Spec-Driven Development, where evals gate the work, not code review.Has experimented beyond current practice (autonomous workflows, multi-agent systems) and can say what held and what broke.Authentic, people-centric leaderEarns trust across diverse teams. Leads change with empathy, not push. Has navigated real change (restructures, M&A, capability shifts) while keeping engagement and retention high. Reflective and self-aware about their own gaps. See the dedicated section below.Operates in brownfield realityOur clusters are not greenfield startups. A typical starting point is 30 to 80 engineers in maintenance mode, acquired-company history, limited spec discipline, no architect yet, and rudimentary telemetry. The person can lead transformation from this reality, not a clean sheet. They know Pilot Purgatory as a named risk (95% of AI initiatives stall before production) and counter it with time-boxed pilots, clear production criteria and reinvest plans from day one.