Head of Engineering (Europe - Remote)

SpotMe is a leading B2B event platform that helps enterprises increase the impact of their events by delivering CRM-connected, high-quality experiences across in-person, virtual, hybrid events, and webinars. With a strong focus on life sciences, SpotMe powers Onomi: an HCP engagement product that enables medical and commercial teams to run impactful congresses, symposia, advisory boards, and webinars. Together, SpotMe and Onomi turn events into a company’s most effective engagement channel. 

This role is for a technical leader who thrives in a hands-on environment and has the expertise and drive to push high-performing feature teams even further. If you have a strong background in large-scale SaaS systems, this is your opportunity to take full ownership of engineering excellence in an organization where it’s a core pillar of business growth and our focus on life sciences. You won’t just guide or improve, you will challenge, raise the bar, and require the best from our engineering teams.

As Head of Engineering, you will report to the VP of Engineering, be part of the engineering leadership team, and immediately take over the engineering development organization (4 squads representing 15 FTEs across Europe). Your primary responsibility will be to keep the teams focused on delivering critical product increments, working in close synchronization with the Product team to ensure alignment and execution. You will also help scale the engineering organization by assessing and interviewing nearshore candidates from our partner company to support team growth. Your time will be spent on:

• [40%] Shipping & Execution:
  • • Take full ownership of getting features shipped fast, stable, and in line with what was promised. Step in wherever needed: break down work, write code, fix blockers, review PRs, and guide implementation choices. 
    • Keep a close eye on progress and make sure nothing stalls. When shit hits the fan, roll up your sleeves and get the team back on track through direct action, not just meetings.
• [40%] Technical leadership & roadblock resolution: 
  • • Ensure engineering teams keep the backlog of issue tickets under its maximum defined level by dispatching issue tickets on the dedicated daily standup. 
    • Personally step in to take over PR reviews that are stuck or piling up - prevent bottlenecks. When necessary, take ownership of fixes and pair programs with engineers to tackle complex problems and accelerate delivery (task force). 
    • Analyze and resolve critical issues, escalating to the VP of Engineering only when necessary. 
• [20%] Team performance:
  • • Drive the growth and effectiveness of the engineering team by actively participating in recruitment, especially nearshore hiring, and setting a high technical bar through example. Personally assess the technical abilities of candidates to ensure they meet the team's standards.
    • Take direct ownership of performance management by identifying issues early, documenting gaps, and working side by side with engineers to implement concrete improvements. 
    • Collaborate with the VP Engineering to review progress and adjust course as needed, with a bias for action and accountability.

• Assess what is working and not working within the engineering development teams, build a 6 months plan and present it to the CEO and VP Engineering
• Assist to the first sprint planning and then take over the next ones - present the work to be performed to the entire team (product & engineering) for each sprint kick-off
• Achieve a clear understanding of our platform’s architecture and code base - with your working development environment at hand you will have created PR’s for two bug fixes.

• After having planned 6 consecutive sprint plannings, an increase in the deliverability improvement of ~15% should be observed.
• Continue evaluating and onboarding nearshore engineers - hiring of 1-2 additional engineer(s) is secured.
• Handle the analysis and resolution of at least 4 critical issues and report back to the VP of Engineering.

• Achieve 90%+ adherence to sprint commitments by improving planning, execution, and accountability within squads.
• Handle all critical issue analysis and resolutions, escalate to VP Engineering when required, manage engineering on-call rotations.
• 4 large features/projects will have been handled from design phase to delivery, including documentation, test plan and product official announcement.
• # of nearshore engineers reaches 5 FTE’s

• Application engineering teams are fully staffed with the addition of 2-3 extra nearshore engineers bringing it to a total of 20 engineers.
• Identify and scope the most important tech debt refactoring project (highest impact) within our platform that brings significant value to scalability and performance and lead it to completion.

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in a leadership role.
• Proven track record of delivering large-scale, business-critical SaaS products that run 24/7.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native architectures, distributed systems, and high-availability platforms.
• Strong expertise in release management, patch deployment, and continuous delivery strategies.
• Experience managing feature teams focused on continuous product delivery in an agile environment.
• Ability to unblock technical challenges, mentor engineers, and lead by example.
• Strong coding experience in JavaScript, Node.js, and Vue.js, with the ability to dive into code when needed.
• Expertise with Git/GitHub workflows, including peer review (PR) best practices, branching strategies, and CI/CD integrations.
• Previous experience working with nearshore/offshore teams and scaling engineering organizations is an asset.
• Ability to break down product functional requirements into technical development plans and Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs), ensuring feasibility and alignment with business goals.

SpotMe recruits, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, parental status, or veteran status.