Hazelcast is seeking a Vice President of Engineering to lead our global engineering function. You will define and execute technical strategy for our Java open-source based in-memory Real-Time Data Platform, ensuring quality, performance, and resilience while managing world-class engineering teams.
What You'll Do
- Collaborate with Product Management to define, prioritize, and drive the technical direction of the product roadmap.
- Drive, own and manage end-to-end engineering delivery against the product roadmap using agile methodologies.
- Maintain and elevate world-class standards for system quality, performance, security, and resilience.
- Provide oversight for core technical domains including distributed systems, high-performance Java, concurrency, streaming, and data structures.
- Steward Hazelcast’s open-source core with commitment to transparency, stability, and long-term compatibility.
- Balance the needs of commercial customers with the expectations of a global open-source community.
- Convert high-volume user feedback from production environments into clear engineering priorities.
- Maintain disciplined reliability across Hazelcast’s multi-language client ecosystem and seamless upgrades.
- Champion exceptional developer and operator experience, driving documentation quality and community engagement.
- Lead, motivate, and manage a highly distributed, global engineering team.
- Instill a strong product-led, innovation ethos within the company.
- Evolve and optimize the organisational structure for performance, resilience, scalability, and ownership.
- Involve yourself in headcount planning for a right-sized, skilled, and diverse global engineering organisation.
- Identify, coach, mentor, and develop engineering managers, creating clear career paths.
- Ensure teams are empowered and aligned with company goals, providing frequent, actionable feedback.
- On occasion, partner with Sales for critical field training, enablement, and customer-facing activity.
- Inspire and engage advanced developers globally, encouraging contributions to open-source projects.
What We're Looking For
- 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in software engineering.
- At least 5 years operating at the VP and/or director level, preferably in B2B enterprise software or platform.
- Demonstrated experience fostering a product-led culture and driving commercial results through engineering excellence.
- Deep, hands-on understanding of complex architectures, concurrent, distributed systems, high-performance compute, and real-time data architectures.
- Excel at balancing open-source community expectations with enterprise requirements, maintaining rigorous public API discipline, documentation standards, and governance practices.
- Experience nurturing a global developer and operator community across polyglot clients, cloud-native deployments, and hybrid environments.
- Proven track record of successfully leading a geographically distributed, international engineering organisation.
- A strong foundation in core technologies relevant to the Hazelcast platform including Java, concurrency, networking, data streaming, SQL, distributed data stores, data grids.
- Expertise in modern agile methodologies and continuous delivery pipelines.
- Comfortable working backward from the customer and working in an “open-kitchen,” GTM aligned environment.
Nice to Have
- Entrepreneurial spirit, approaching the engineering function as a startup within the larger company.
- Exceptional verbal, written, and presentation skills for communicating complex technical strategy to internal teams and external stakeholders.
- Proven ability to influence across organizational boundaries, driving alignment between Product, Engineering, Sales, and Marketing.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
Technical Stack
- Java
- Distributed Systems
- Streaming/Stream Processing
- SQL
- Distributed Data Stores
- Data Grids
Team & Environment
You will lead a global engineering team. The structure is highly distributed, with the majority in the UK and smaller teams across EMEA. Our culture is people-centric, with an aggressive and collaborative engineering culture and a product-led, innovation ethos.
Benefits & Compensation
- 25 days Annual Leave + Bank Holidays + Quarterly Wellbeing Days
- Group Company Pension Plan
- Private Medical Insurance
- Private Dental Insurance
- Life Insurance
- EAP (Employee Assistance Program)
Work Mode
This is a global role. Candidates are welcome from the UK and EMEA regions.
Hazelcast is an equal opportunity employer.
