VP of Engineering

We are a venture-backed startup revolutionizing AI-powered decision tools. Founded by seasoned leaders from Google, Meta, Bridgewater Associates, Cerberus Capital, and US intelligence agencies, we combine deep industry expertise with world-class AI capabilities to solve complex decision‑making challenges across finance, national security and other industries.

This is a unique opportunity to be both at the nexus of world‑class AI research and production‑grade systems, while operating at a rapid pace to push code to paying customers everyday with a special operations‑like team of early‑stage engineers and managers.

VICO is looking for a VP of Engineering to lead and grow our engineering team. You'll report directly to the CTO and play a lead role in daily engineering execution, team development, and tactical problem‑solving as the company accelerates development of scaled architecture. This is a hands‑on leadership role where you'll manage a team of junior engineers while helping shape the direction of our product and infrastructure.

We're looking for someone who thrives in a startup environment — someone who's comfortable operating with ambiguity, moving fast, and building both the team and the technology from the ground up.

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers across the full development lifecycle
• Partner closely with the CTO to translate new architecture and company strategy into engineering roadmaps and priorities
• Own engineering strategy and execution — delivery cadence, code quality, and platform architecture
• Build and refine engineering processes that scale with the team without slowing it down
• Drive hiring, onboarding, and retention as the team grows
• Champion best practices around LLM integration, evaluation, and deployment
• Contribute to technical decision‑making around model selection, LLMOps, fine‑tuning, and infrastructure for LLM‑powered features
• Interface with an AI Research & Development Team to evaluate and plan deployment of new models

• Minimum 5-7 years of engineering management and / or Tech Lead experience, with a track record of leading high‑performance teams
• Significant startup experience — you've built and shipped in fast‑moving, resource‑constrained environments and you're energized by it
• Hands‑on LLM experience — you've worked directly with large language models in a production setting, whether that's building LLM‑powered products, managing teams doing so, or both
• Experience with our stack or similar technologies (Python, React, PostgreSQL, GCP)
• Strong technical foundation with the ability to go deep when needed while staying focused on team‑level impact
• Experience establishing engineering culture, processes, and norms in early‑stage or high‑growth companies
• Excellent communication skills — you can align engineering work with business goals and communicate effectively across functions
• A builder's mindset: pragmatic, resourceful, and biased toward action
• Contributions to open‑source projects or technical community leadership

• B2B or equivalent experience
• Experience scaling an engineering team beyond its current size
• Familiarity with model evaluation frameworks and retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) architectures
• Previous experience in a VP or Director‑level engineering role

$200,000 - $300,000 + equity package depending on experience

VICO is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.