Vice President - Engineering

Company Overview:

Founded in 2010, Innefu Labs is a cutting-edge AI-driven R&D organization focused on delivering advanced Data Analytics and Information Security solutions.

With innovation at its core, the company was established with a mission to drive high-end R&D that results in globally competitive products and contributes to national economic growth.

With over 100+ successful deployments across the Indian Subcontinent, Middle East, and Southeast Asia, Innefu has emerged as a de facto leader in AI for National and Cyber Security.

Our proprietary product suite serves a diverse clientele, including Defense & Intelligence agencies, Law Enforcement, Financial Intelligence Units, BFSI, and several Fortune 500 companies.

Trusted by some of the most sensitive and mission-critical organizations, we bring unparalleled expertise in handling secure and large-scale installations.

Our core philosophy revolves around building state-of-the-art, problem-solving products backed by exceptional customer support to ensure 100% client satisfaction.

Role Overview:

We are seeking a strategic and hands-on VP of Engineering to own the technology vision, engineering organization, and delivery outcomes across Innefu's AI/ML-powered Data Analytics and Information Security product suite.

This is a senior leadership role reporting into the executive team, responsible for scaling engineering capability, driving architectural excellence, and ensuring the organization can deliver secure, high-performance products at the pace and reliability our national security and enterprise clients demand.

Key Responsibilities:

Organizational & Executive Leadership:

- Define and own the engineering vision, strategy, and multi-quarter roadmap in partnership with the executive leadership team.

- Build, scale, and lead a multi-team engineering organization, including Engineering Managers, Tech Leads, and Data Engineering functions.

- Own engineering headcount planning, budgeting, and vendor/tooling decisions.

- Drive org-wide performance management, career frameworks, and leadership development for managers reporting into this role.

- Represent engineering in leadership/board-level discussions on product strategy, delivery risk, and technology investment.

Delivery & Agile Governance:

- Set and govern engineering-wide delivery standards: sprint cadence, velocity tracking, release predictability, and quality gates.

- Ensure cross-team alignment with the product roadmap; resolve cross-functional dependencies and prioritization conflicts.

- Establish metrics and reporting for engineering health (delivery predictability, defect rates, system uptime) for leadership visibility.

Technical & Architectural Ownership:

- Own the enterprise-wide technical architecture strategy - scalability, security, and performance - across Python-based microservices and JavaScript-based service/UI layers.

- Set standards for graph-based data modeling (Neo4j) and search/analytics infrastructure (Elasticsearch) used across the product portfolio.

- Define and enforce engineering best practices: coding standards, code review culture, testing, and CI/CD maturity across teams.

- Remain hands-on when needed - reviewing critical architecture decisions, unblocking complex technical problems, and setting technical direction rather than day-to-day coding.

Infrastructure, Security & Deployment:

- Own the strategy for Docker-based on-premises development and deployment, particularly for secure, air-gapped, or classified environments typical of defense/intelligence clients.

- Partner with DevOps and Security leadership to harden CI/CD, version control practices, and deployment governance across on-prem and hybrid environments.

- Ensure architecture and infrastructure decisions meet the compliance and data-sensitivity requirements of government, defense, and BFSI clients.

Cross-functional & Stakeholder Management:

- Act as the primary engineering counterpart to Product, Business Stakeholders, Sales/Pre-Sales, and QA leadership.

- Lead executive-level discussions on technical risk, major incidents, and product/technology trade-offs.

- Champion a strong engineering culture of ownership, mentorship, and continuous improvement across the organization.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

- 15+ years of software development and engineering experience, including 6+ years in senior leadership roles managing managers or multiple teams.

- Deep hands-on background in Python, with strong working knowledge of frameworks such as Django, Flask, and FastAPI.

- Working knowledge of JavaScript for full-stack and service-layer oversight.

- Strong experience with Elasticsearch for search and analytics at scale.

- Experience with graph databases (Neo4j) for relationship-driven data modeling and analytics use cases.

- Proven experience owning Docker-based, on-premises development and deployment for enterprise or secure/air-gapped environments.

- Familiarity with PostgreSQL and NoSQL databases at an architectural decision-making level.

- Strong understanding of data engineering pipelines and ETL processes (good to have, especially if leading Data Engineering functions).

- Demonstrated experience owning Agile delivery governance across multiple teams - not just facilitating ceremonies, but setting org-wide delivery standards.

- Strong experience with Git-based version control and CI/CD strategy at an organizational level.

- Deep expertise in scalable architecture, high availability, and system performance at an enterprise portfolio level.

- Prior experience in budget ownership, vendor management, and executive/board-level communication.

- Exceptional leadership, stakeholder management, and strategic problem-solving abilities.