Many engineering leadership roles focus on execution and technology. This one is different — it's strategic. You own business outcomes, and you partner as an equal with Product Management to shape the vision and the roadmap, not just deliver against it.
As VP of Software Engineering, you lead a global engineering organization across several teams and products within a business domain in Diligent's Technology organization. You lead through Directors and managers, set the technical and organizational strategy, and are accountable for delivery, reliability, security, and the overall performance of the organization.
AI-Native Is the Mandate, Not a Side Project
Diligent is an AI-native company, and engineering leads the way. You embed AI-native practices across the software development lifecycle, stand up reusable platform and AI capabilities, and champion the adoption of AI tooling and agentic workflows to accelerate our own engineering productivity — with real adoption and impact targets, and clear guardrails for security, quality, data privacy, and responsible AI.
Drive Execution
You deliver production-grade systems, not experiments. You balance speed with rigor — security, privacy, and compliance are non-negotiable — and you operate across multiple concurrent initiatives with clear prioritization.
The Organization You Build
You hire, coach, and develop senior engineering leaders and experts. You design the org for scale across regions, plan the workforce against budget and delivery commitments, and build an inclusive, high-performing culture grounded in accountability, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
The Rooms You're In
You partner as an equal with Product Management to shape the vision, roadmap, and product priorities, and work closely with Executive Leadership, UX, Security, Data, and Customer teams. You represent engineering at executive forums, and you're a public face for Diligent's engineering brand in the technical community and talent market. You communicate and influence at every level — acting as a bridge between engineering and the business, articulating trade-offs, risks, and outcomes to senior leadership, and aligning cross-functional teams around shared goals and timelines.
These are the essentials you'll need to get an interview:
Apply If You…
- Have 15+ years in software engineering, including 5+ years leading large, global engineering organizations through Directors and managers
- Have owned business outcomes for an engineering organization — accountable not just for delivery, but for reliability, security, and overall performance
- Partner as an equal with Product Management to shape vision, roadmap, and priorities, and collaborate closely with UX, Security, Data, and Customer teams
- Have led engineering for enterprise SaaS products at significant scale
- Drive execution with rigor — delivering production-grade systems, balancing speed with security, privacy, and compliance, and prioritizing across multiple concurrent initiatives
- Bring a bias for action and thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments, staying focused on measurable business impact
- Are deeply fluent in modern software engineering: cloud-native architecture, platform engineering, microservices and API-first design, DevOps, data platforms, and AI/ML
- Have the technical credibility to earn the trust of senior engineers — engaging in key architecture and technical decisions and challenging constructively
- Champion AI-native ways of working, with a track record of AI adoption and large-scale technology modernization
- Bring a track record of operational excellence and reliability engineering (SLOs, incident management, quality, security) across always-on services
- Design organizations for scale across regions, and plan workforce and budgets against delivery commitments
- Communicate and influence at executive level — bridging engineering and the business and aligning diverse stakeholders around a shared strategy
- Hire, coach, and develop senior engineering leaders and experts, and build diverse, inclusive, high-performing cultures
It would be great if you had these too — but we'll support you if you don't:
- Experience delivering software in a regulated or security-sensitive domain (GRC, governance/risk/compliance, fintech, or other trust-critical enterprise software)
- Hands-on familiarity with modern AI platforms and agentic tooling (LLMs, RAG, agent frameworks, MCP, AI-assisted development)
- Experience leading distributed, multi-region engineering teams
- Experience scaling engineering organizations through significant growth, M&A integration, or platform consolidation
This is one of the most consequential engineering leadership roles at Diligent. You'll shape how AI transforms governance, risk and compliance for more than a million users — and build the organization that makes it real.
#LI-Hybrid
About Us
Diligent is the AI leader in governance, risk and compliance (GRC) SaaS solutions, helping more than 1 million users and 700,000 board members to clarify risk and elevate governance. The Diligent One Platform gives practitioners, the C-Suite and the board a consolidated view of their entire GRC practice so they can more effectively manage risk, build greater resilience and make better decisions, faster.
Learn more at diligent.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook
What Diligent Offers You
- Creativity is ingrained in our culture. We are innovative collaborators by nature. We thrive in exploring how things can be differently both in our internal processes and to help our clients
- We care about our people. Diligent offers a flexible work environment, global days of service, comprehensive health benefits, meeting free days, generous time off policy and wellness programs to name a few
- We have teams all over the world. We may be headquartered in New York City, but we have office hubs in Washington D.C., Vancouver, London, Galway, Budapest, Munich, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Sydney.
- Diversity is important to us. Growing, maintaining and promoting a diverse team is a top priority for us. We foster and encourage diversity through our Employee Resource Groups and provide access to resources and education to support the education of our team, facilitate dialogue, and foster understanding.
Diligent created the modern governance movement. Our world-changing idea is to empower leaders with the technology, insights and connections they need to drive greater impact and accountability – to lead with purpose. Our employees are passionate, smart, and creative people who not only want to help build the software company of the future, but who want to make the world a more sustainable, equitable and better place.
Headquartered in New York, Diligent has offices in Washington D.C., London, Galway, Budapest, Vancouver, Bengaluru, Munich, Singapore and Sydney. To foster strong collaboration and connection, this role will follow a hybrid work model. If you are within a commuting distance to one of our Diligent office locations, you will be expected to work onsite at least 50% of the time. We believe that in-person engagement helps drive innovation, teamwork, and a strong sense of community.
We are a drug free workplace. Diligent is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, physical disability, mental disability, age, military status, protected veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer related or HIV/AIDS related), genetic information, or sexual orientation in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Diligent's EEO Policy and Know Your Rights. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected].
At Diligent, we recognize the value of a diverse global workforce. Visa sponsorship may be available for select positions based on business needs and specific role requirements. Sponsorship decisions are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and eligibility should not be assumed for all opportunities.
Please find the link to our candidate privacy policy here: https://www.diligent.com/legal/candidate-privacy
To all recruitment agencies: Diligent does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Diligent employees or any other organization location. Diligent is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
Skills Required
- 15+ years of progressive software engineering leadership experience, including leading large global engineering organizations through multiple leadership layers
- Proven success leading engineering organizations supporting enterprise SaaS products at significant scale
- Demonstrated experience developing and executing enterprise technology strategies aligned with business growth objectives
- Executive leadership experience partnering with Product, Design, Security, Customer Success, Sales, and executive stakeholders
- Deep understanding of modern software engineering, cloud-native architectures, platform engineering, DevOps, AI/ML technologies, and engineering operational excellence
- Proven experience leading organizational transformation, including AI adoption and large-scale technology modernization initiatives
- Strong commercial acumen balancing customer outcomes, engineering investment, operational efficiency, and financial performance
- Experience managing large operating budgets, organizational planning, and executive-level business planning
- Exceptional executive communication and influencing skills with ability to align diverse stakeholders
- Passion for building diverse, inclusive, high-performing engineering cultures and developing future engineering leaders
- Strategic thinker who thrives in complex, fast-moving environments and consistently delivers measurable business impact
Diligent Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Diligent and has not been reviewed or approved by Diligent.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage includes comprehensive medical, dental, and vision options. Wellness programs are also highlighted as part of the package.
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Retirement Support — Retirement offerings include a 401(k) with employer match in the U.S. and regional plans internationally. This structure underscores support for long-term savings.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off is framed as flexible with “unlimited PTO” and periodic recharge weeks in some areas. Parental leave is also promoted within the global package.
Diligent Insights
What We Do
Diligent is the leading GRC SaaS provider, serving nearly 1 million users from 25,000 organizations around the world. Our software enables holistic and informed conversations about governance, risk and compliance and ensures CEOs, CFOs and the board have an integrated view of audit, risk, information security, ethics and compliance from across the organization. Our world-changing idea is to bring technology, insights and confidence to leaders so they can build more effective, equitable, and successful organizations – and create lasting, positive impact on the world. We seek to empower organizations to be better for their stakeholders and communities, for their customers and employees, for their bottom line. Headquartered in New York, Diligent also has offices in Washington D.C., London, Galway, Budapest, Vancouver, Bengaluru, Munich, and Sydney.
