VP of Engineering

Velen is hiring a hands-on engineering leader to own the platform, its cloud infrastructure, its security and the engineers who build it, reporting to the CEO and working closely with the COO. Most days you will write and ship infrastructure and application code (Python and Django) yourself, while setting engineering standards and hiring the team as the company grows. You will also be the technical owner of security and compliance, running the SOC 2 program and making sure every family’s data stays separated and protected. Because Velen is AI-first, you will set the rules engineering follows when building with AI coding agents, with human review of every change. The role is full-time and hybrid in Austin, with a base salary of $150,000 to $180,000 plus a strong equity package, starting as soon as possible.

The Role

You own engineering at Velen. Day to day, that means the platform, the infrastructure it runs on, its security, and the engineers who build it. You report to the CEO, work hand in hand with the COO, and are part of the leadership team.

This is a hands-on role. You will write infrastructure code, ship application code and fix production yourself, most days of the week, while you set the standards and hire the team that grows with us. You are also the technical owner of our security and compliance programme and the person an auditor, a client's security team or an investor talks to about how Velen is built.

What You Will Do

• Design, run and secure our cloud infrastructure, defined as code and deployed through GitOps.
• Own reliability: uptime, backups, disaster recovery, capacity, cost, and the on-call and incident response that go with them.
• Own security engineering: identity and access, secrets, network boundaries, encryption, logging, vulnerability management and supply chain security.
• Keep dependencies and container images patched and scanned, and fix vulnerabilities within our published timelines.
• Keep family data separated and protected in a multi-tenant application, and prove it with automated isolation tests that run on every change, so each family and advisor sees only what they are entitled to.
• Review and ship application code (Python and Django) and keep the delivery pipeline fast and safe.
• Partner with the COO on the UX work that prepares the product for scale: front-end architecture, performance, accessibility and a component system the team can build on quickly.
• Own the services around the app: transactional email, DNS and the edge, and our integrations with market data and financial providers.
• Own our SOC 2 program and answer security questionnaires and due diligence from clients and investors.
• Hire, mentor and lead the engineering team as we grow.

Who You Are

You build and you lead. There is a lot to do, and you take things on without being asked.

• Proactive. You spot problems early and fix them.
• Relentless. Can't stop, won't stop. You stay with hard problems until they are solved.
• An owner. You treat Velen's systems, budget and reputation as your own.
• Honest about risk. You say what is broken, plainly and early.
• Steady under pressure. You stay calm during incidents and lead the fix.
• Committed to the mission. You want to build something families rely on for years.

What You Bring

• You still write code every week. In your last role you personally shipped infrastructure and application changes to production, not only reviewed or directed them. Show us a repository, a pull request or a system you built yourself.
• You build AI-first. You already ship with AI coding agents (Claude Code or similar) every day: you plan the work, have agents write much of the code, and review every change yourself. You know the mistakes agents make, and you put tests, CI checks and review rules in place to catch them.
• You have worked in engineering at a company that handled sensitive data (fintech, wealth, health or security) and are well-versed in the security and compliance practices that come with it. You do not cut corners.
• Kubernetes in production: you have run clusters people depended on, including upgrades, networking, ingress, autoscaling and incident response.
• Infrastructure as code: Terraform or OpenTofu, with state managed safely and changes reviewed like application code.
• GitOps and CI/CD: continuous delivery from reviewed pull requests, with safe rollouts and rollbacks.
• Databases and recovery: managed PostgreSQL, backups and point-in-time restore, and you have run a real restore during an incident.
• Networking and edge: private networking, private operator access, and a CDN and web application firewall in front of the app.
• Observability: metrics, logs and alerts that catch problems before clients do.
• Security and compliance: you have been through SOC 2 as the technical owner and know what evidence an auditor wants. You have scoped penetration tests, fixed their findings, and built automated tests for access control and tenant isolation.
• Hands on with Python: comfortable reading, reviewing and fixing a Django codebase.
• Clear writing and calm judgment: you explain risk to non-engineers in plain words.

Nice To Have

• Front-end and product UX experience: design systems, performance and accessibility.
• Secure code review, including reviewing code written with AI agents.
• Cost management on a lean cloud budget.
• GDPR and UK GDPR obligations for client data.

Our Values

• Human judgment leads the machine. The Engine informs and people decide, in our product and in how we build it.
• Act like an owner. We take responsibility for outcomes.
• Truth over ego. The best answer wins, whoever it comes from.
• Meet people where they are. We start from where families and teammates are today and improve from there.
• Solve and move. We fix the problem in front of us and keep going.
• Clarity over cleverness. Simple systems, plain words, and code the next engineer can read.

How We Work

• Small, senior team; you work directly with the founders.
• We are AI-first. Most of our code and much of how we run the company is built with AI agents, inside clear guardrails. You will set the rules engineering follows when using them: their instructions, the checks they must pass, and human review of every change.
• Everyone passes a background check and reference checks before getting access, and signs our security policies.

The Details

• Location: Austin, hybrid.
• Type: full-time employee, base salary $150,000 to $180,000 with a strong equity package.
• Start: as soon as possible.

How Our Process Works

1. Apply. A short set of questions, about ten minutes.
2. Review. We come back to you within 48 hours.
3. First interview with the founders by invitation.
4. Reference Check.
5. A paid working session ($200) on a real problem by invitation.
6. Decision. We hold first interviews until 14 November, and you hear by 17 November whether you are in the next round.

To apply, use the application link on this posting. We reply to every applicant.