VP Engineering

Lead an engineering organisation through its next stage of growth, with responsibility for delivery, architecture, and the teams behind both.

VP Engineering - Paris

Paris, France · Permanent · Hybrid

What you'd actually work on

• Leading an engineering organisation across software development, platform, quality, and engineering management
• Defining the organisational structure required for the company’s next stage of growth
• Managing and developing engineering managers and senior technical leaders
• Establishing clear ownership across products, platforms, and shared services
• Working with the CTO and product leadership to translate company priorities into an achievable roadmap
• Improving delivery predictability without adding unnecessary process
• Ensuring architecture decisions support product growth, reliability, and security
• Defining how technical debt is assessed, prioritised, and communicated
• Improving engineering recruitment, onboarding, career paths, and succession planning
• Reviewing organisational and technical risks across the platform
• Establishing meaningful engineering and operational metrics
• Managing the engineering budget, headcount plan, and external technology partners
• Communicating delivery progress, risks, and investment needs to the executive team

Where it gets technically interesting

• Scaling an organisation that has grown faster than its management structure
• Clarifying ownership across teams working on shared systems and dependencies
• Modernising parts of the platform while maintaining delivery commitments
• Improving reliability and engineering quality without creating a separate approval layer
• Building a management team that can operate without every decision escalating upward
• Deciding where to invest in platform capabilities and where product-specific solutions remain appropriate
• Aligning product, engineering, and commercial priorities when capacity is limited
• Maintaining technical credibility while operating at executive level

What we're looking for

• Significant experience leading a multi-team software engineering organisation
• Previous experience as a VP Engineering, Head of Engineering, Engineering Director, or equivalent
• A strong technical background in software engineering and architecture
• Experience managing engineering managers and senior individual contributors
• Evidence of improving delivery, reliability, and organisational clarity
• Experience scaling teams, structures, and engineering practices
• Ability to assess technical and organisational risks together
• Experience with workforce planning, recruitment, budgets, and external partners
• Confidence working with product, finance, commercial, and executive stakeholders
• Clear communication with both engineering teams and board-level audiences
• The judgement to introduce structure without creating unnecessary bureaucracy
• Professional French and English

The company

A European B2B software company entering a new stage of product and international growth. The engineering organisation includes several teams distributed across software development, platform, data, and quality.

The role reports to the CTO and carries responsibility for engineering delivery, organisational development, and the day-to-day leadership of the function.

Health insurance, profit-sharing, executive incentive plan, and flexible working.

Languages: Native or bilingual French and professional English.

A search run by The French Sourcer, recruitment built for technical teams.