VP of Engineering

Ryz Labs is looking for a VP of Engineering to join our client's small, fast-moving team. They're looking for a VP of Engineering to lead our client's technical team into the AI-native era. This isn't about replacing developers with AI, it's about transforming how their team works: from writing code to orchestrating, reviewing, and shipping features, we are looking for someone who can help them move 3-5x faster.

You'll inherit a small, capable engineering team and a mature Rails + Vue.js platform powering a B2B marketplace. Your mission will be to implement a proven AI-native development system that dramatically accelerates our feature velocity while maintaining quality.

This role is ideal if you:

• Have already built or led an AI-native engineering workflow

• Love coaching engineers through transformation, not just managing them

• Can operate autonomously with non-technical founders who trust you to own the technical vision

• Want to lead the team by showing how you get your hands dirty and push features at a mind- blowing pace while maintaining quality

• Implement your proven system for AI-augmented development (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or your preferred stack)

• Redesign workflows so engineers shift from writing to orchestrating, reviewing, and shipping

• Establish quality gates, review processes, and guardrails that maintain code quality at higher velocity

• Measure and report on cycle time improvements — we want features shipping in days, not weeks

• Transform a small team (2-3 engineers) into confident AI orchestrators

• Teach prompt engineering, using plan mode to define and architect features, leverage AI- assisted debugging, and effective human-AI collaboration

• Build a culture of continuous learning as AI tooling rapidly evolves

• Hire strategically when needed, prioritizing adaptability over traditional coding credentials

• Roll up your sleeves and ship code alongside the team — lead by example, not just direction

• Jump into complex technical problems, architecture decisions, and critical bugs

• Demonstrate AI-native workflows firsthand so the team sees what "great" looks like

• Stay technically sharp — this isn't a pure management role we want you to show the team what high-agency coding looks like

• Serve as the senior technical leader — you're the final word on architecture and technical decisions

• Communicate progress and priorities to non-technical founders in business terms

• Balance speed with stability — ship fast without breaking what works

• Maintain and evolve our Rails 8 + MongoDB + Vue.js stack

 

• Proven AI-native development experience, you've already implemented AI-augmented workflows (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, AI code review, etc.) and can show measurable results in cycle time or velocity improvements

• Hands-on technical ability, strong with Ruby/Rails and modern JavaScript frameworks; you can architect, debug, and ship production code, not just review it

• Autonomous operator, you thrive working with non-technical founders; you don't need technical oversight to make good decisions

• Excellent communicator, you can translate technical progress into business outcomes that non-engineers understand

• A strong desire to take a growing company to the next level

• Experience with our specific stack: Rails 8, MongoDB (Mongoid), Vue.js 2.x, Sidekiq, AWS/GCP

• Engineering leadership experience — Led or transformed a team (even a small one) through a significant process or technology change

• Background in marketplace platforms, B2B SaaS, or two-sided platforms

• Experience building or scaling remote-first engineering teams

• Prior startup experience — comfortable with ambiguity and wearing multiple hats

• Experience in advertising technology — SSPs, DSPs, programmatic platforms

• Background in retail media networks or performance marketing

• Experience with events, venues, or logistics platforms

RYZ Labs is a startup studio built in 2021 by two lifelong entrepreneurs. The founders of RYZ have worked at some of the world's largest tech companies and some of the most iconic consumer brands. They have lived and worked in Argentina for many years and have decades of experience in Latam. What brought them together is the passion for the early phases of company creation and the idea of attracting the brightest talents in order to build industry-defining companies in a post-pandemic world.

Our teams are remote and distributed throughout the US and Latam. They use the latest cutting edge technologies in cloud computing to create applications that are scalable and resilient. We aim to provide diverse product solutions for different industries, planning to build a large number of startups in the upcoming years.

At RYZ, you will find yourself working with autonomy and efficiency, owning every step of your development. We provide an environment of opportunities, learning, growth, expansion and challenging projects. You will deepen your experience while sharing and learning from a team of great professionals and specialists.

- Customer First Mentality - every decision we make should be made through the lens of the customer.

- Bias for Action - urgency is critical, expect that the timeline to get something done is accelerated.

- Ownership -  step up if you see an opportunity to help, even if not your core responsibility. 

- Humility and Respect - be willing to learn, be vulnerable, and treat everyone that interacts with RYZ with respect.

- Frugality - being frugal and cost conscious helps us do more with less.

- Deliver Impact - get things done in the most efficient way. 

- Raise our Standards - always be looking to improve our processes, our team, our expectations. Status quo is not good enough and never should be.