VP of Engineering

About First Resonance

First Resonance builds the ION Factory OS, the operating system powering next-generation manufacturing for companies building eVTOLs, rockets, satellites, clean energy systems, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. Our customers are tackling society’s greatest challenges—climate change, space exploration, and the future of transportation.

We are looking for a Vice President of Engineering to lead our engineering organization through the next stage of growth, as we scale ION to hundreds of factories globally and deliver mission-critical software with the highest standards of reliability, security, and performance.

Role Overview

This role reports to Karan Talati, CEO of First Resonance.

As VP of Engineering, you will own the technical vision, execution, and organizational leadership of the engineering function at First Resonance. You will be responsible for scaling our platform and team across cloud-native, AI-driven, and enterprise-grade dimensions—while ensuring innovation and speed are balanced with architectural soundness and operational discipline.

You’ll partner closely with Product, the CEO, and cross-functional leadership to define strategy, deliver against roadmap commitments, and establish engineering excellence as a competitive advantage.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Define and drive the technical vision, architecture, and long-term strategy for ION.
• Lead the adoption and evolution of cloud-native architecture: AWS GovCloud, Kubernetes, Postgres/Aurora, event-driven messaging systems (Kafka, Kinesis, RabbitMQ, etc.).
• Guide full-stack development using Python, Go, React/Next.js, and modern DevOps practices.
• Deliver production-ready LLM/AI workflows (OpenAI SDK, Anthropic/Claude, etc.), enabling intelligence and automation in manufacturing operations.
• Ensure solutions are scalable, reliable, secure, and cost-optimized.
• Oversee enterprise-grade security and compliance programs to support aerospace, defense, and regulated industries.
• Build, lead, and scale a high-performing engineering organization across Los Angeles, Mexico, and Argentina.
• Establish clear career ladders, OKRs, and succession planning to develop engineering talent.

Organizational Leadership

• Recruit, retain, and coach top engineering talent while fostering a culture of urgency, accountability, and innovation.
• Integrate nearshore/offshore augmentation models without compromising quality.

Cross-Functional & External Influence

• Partner with Product to shape and deliver the roadmap, balancing rapid delivery with long-term scalability.
• Collaborate with Sales, Finance, and GTM teams to support customer needs, technical evaluations, and enterprise deals.
• Act as a credible, customer-facing technical leader—translating complex engineering decisions into clear business impact.

Qualifications

Required:

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 5+ years leading at the Director or VP level.
• Proven success scaling cloud-native SaaS platforms with Kubernetes, AWS (GovCloud preferred), and event-driven systems.
• Experience building and shipping AI/ML or LLM-driven workflows into production.
• Hands-on experience with full-stack development (Python, Go, React/Next.js).
• Strong expertise in system architecture, distributed systems, and event-driven design.
• Demonstrated success running enterprise-grade security & compliance programs (SOC2, FedRAMP, ITAR, etc.).
• Track record of designing and scaling distributed engineering organizations with measurable outcomes.
• Exceptional communication skills with executives, cross-functional leaders, and customers.
• Experience in manufacturing, aerospace/defense, robotics, or industrial SaaS.

Preferred:

• Success in a Series B/C scale-up environment preparing for rapid growth and fundraising milestones.
• Familiarity with developer productivity, observability, and reliability tooling (e.g., Datadog, Sentry, GitLab, Cloudflare).
• Low ego, high urgency: You care more about results than credit.
• First-principles thinker: You reason from fundamentals, not convention.
• Builder at heart: You bring hands-on credibility, even as a leader.
• Customer-driven: You translate technical choices into customer value.
• Scale-ready: You’ve built organizations, systems, and processes that support growth.
• Health Insurance; medical, vision, dental, & life insurance.

Who You Are

Benefits & Perks

• Paid Parental Leave.

• Employee Stock Option Plan.
• Team outings, group lunches, open office, happy hours.
• Paid holidays, sick days.
• Flexible Friday and PTO.

• 401k.

First Resonance is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workforce.

First Resonance participates in E-Verify. As part of our onboarding process, a new hire's Form I-9 information will be shared with the federal government to confirm they are authorized to work in the U.S.

Pay is based on factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience and skillset, and location.

First Resonance accelerates the speed and reliability of hardware development for companies manufacturing the next generation of hardware products. This includes space exploration, electric airplanes, autonomous vehicles, nuclear reactors, robotics, and more. We are a group of software, hardware, and manufacturing engineers that are bringing the best of modern UX and data science to an industry that has been overly rigid in its innovation. We are removing the barriers preventing radical advancement by providing tools to manufacturing engineers and operators to move information more freely, collaborate with their teams more easily, and use the power of data to predict problems and provide insights that result in better hardware quality and delivery.