Vice President of Engineering

ABOUT ANDERCORE Andercore is the AI-native supplier of industrial materials for energy, infrastructure, and construction in wholesale and beyond. We trade with global suppliers and distribute to European customers on our own account. Our AI runs the full trade and distribution end-to-end: sourcing, quality, pricing, sales, logistics, and embedded financing. For the customer, it feels like buying from their preferred local supplier; for our partners, it is the most convenient and safe way to do business across borders. Behind it, our software and agentic AI do the heavy lifting that used to take an asset-intensive supply chain with four or five intermediaries and weeks of manual coordination. Where we are today: - Strong triple-digit-million euro turnover - Seven European markets live - 80+ people across Berlin (HQ), offices in London, Mumbai, and Shanghai $40M Series B just closed, $75M raised to date from Atomico, Project A, and Inven Capital, institutional financing from international banks. We are building the world's first and last industrial-grade AI operating system for materials, redefining how global trade works in one of the largest and most essential industries on earth. This is a strategic and hands-on leadership role at the core of the next phase of growth. As VP of Engineering, you will be responsible for ensuring the stability, performance, and reliability of our current AI-first marketplace platform, while simultaneously leading the evolution toward more scalable, cloud-native, and service-oriented architectures designed to support rapid innovation and long-term scale. You will work closely with the CEO, CPTO, Product, and Design leadership, alongside a high-caliber engineering team, to translate ambitious product and business vision into reliable, well-architected technology. This role offers a rare opportunity to shape both today’s platform and the future technical foundation of an AI-driven marketplace operating at increasing scale and complexity. YOUR MISSION LEAD AND SCALE THE ENGINEERING ORGANIZATION - Lead, grow, and mentor a high-performing engineering organization across multiple teams and domains. - Develop engineering leaders and managers, fostering accountability, ownership, and technical excellence. - Build a strong, inclusive engineering culture grounded in psychological safety and high standards. - Partner closely with Business and Product leadership on roadmap planning, prioritization, and trade-offs. - Represent engineering perspectives in executive and business discussions. - Align technology strategy with company goals and customer outcomes. DRIVE PLATFORM EVOLUTION - Ensure continuous improvement, stability, and performance of the existing marketplace platform. - Lead the architectural evolution toward scalable, cloud-native, microservice-based systems. - Balance short-term delivery needs with long-term technical health and scalability. CHAMPION SCALABLE, AI-FIRST ARCHITECTURE - Define and enforce principles for modern, maintainable, and scalable SaaS and marketplace architecture. - Guide the integration of AI/ML capabilities (e.g. LLMs, recommendations, intelligent workflows) into production systems. - Anticipate future technical and platform needs as the business scales. ENSURE OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE AND RELIABILITY - Own system reliability, performance, security, and uptime across all environments. - Strengthen DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and observability. - Drive disciplined engineering processes, metrics, and delivery predictability. FOSTER TECHNICAL INNOVATION - Encourage experimentation and thoughtful adoption of new technologies that improve scalability, reliability, and developer productivity. - Create an environment where teams can innovate while maintaining strong operational rigor. WHAT YOU BRING - 10+ years of software engineering experience, including senior leadership roles (Director, Head of Engineering, VP) in SaaS, marketplace, or platform businesses. - Proven experience leading teams through platform scaling, architectural transformation, or modernization initiatives. - Strong hands-on background in software architecture, distributed systems, APIs, and data-driven platforms. - Deep understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), microservices, and event-driven architectures. - Solid knowledge of DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and observability. - Experience operating in AI-enabled or AI-first product environments is a strong plus. - Excellent communication skills, with the ability to connect technical decisions to business impact. - A genuine passion for building teams, scaling systems, and delivering technology that creates meaningful customer value. - We value diverse backgrounds and encourage applications even if not every requirement is met. We are an equal-opportunity employer and welcome applicants from all backgrounds, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, or any other characteristic. We believe that diversity drives innovation, creativity, and collective strength.