HONEYCOMB CREDIT

Vice President of Engineering

 

Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Hybrid: 2–3 days per week in-office)

Reports To: Senior Leadership (reporting structure finalized with the successful candidate)

Team: Distributed engineering team + future direct hires

About Honeycomb Credit

Honeycomb Credit is a venture-backed community capital technology platform that unlocks funding for local businesses from an unconventional source—their fans, friends, and community. By crowdfunding business loans from their customers, entrepreneurs deepen relationships with their community while investors earn a return supporting the businesses they love.

Honeycomb has driven nearly $60 million of investments to more than 600 businesses across the United States. We’re building a brand new asset class—and we need a technical leader who can make the platform as transformative as the mission.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for a builder-first technical leader who wants to spend 60–70% of their time in the codebase and 30–40% on architecture, process, and people. You’ll be the most senior technologist at Honeycomb—the person who owns the engineering vision, sets the standards, and leads by example in the code.

Honeycomb operates a multi-platform environment serving both investors and business owners. Your job is to lead a major platform consolidation effort, raise the bar on engineering quality and security, and build the foundation for Honeycomb’s next phase of growth. You’ll manage a distributed engineering team, establish governance and development standards across all contributors, and own the long-term technical strategy.

This is a rare opportunity to shape the entire technical direction of a fintech company at an inflection point—with real equity upside and the autonomy to build it right.

What You’ll Own

Technical Delivery (60–70%)

• Lead a platform unification effort—consolidating multiple codebases, databases, and hosting environments into a cohesive architecture
• Drive authentication consolidation across all products using modern identity frameworks
• Architect and execute migration strategies across cloud infrastructure and database environments
• Write production code daily—you set the standard for code quality by doing, not just reviewing
• Own technical decisions across web, mobile, and supporting services
• Manage and evolve a multi-service platform with numerous third-party integrations — ensuring reliability, clear service boundaries, and sustainable complexity as the product grows.
• Resolve infrastructure risks and ensure all systems operate under company-controlled environments with proper governance

Engineering Standards & Governance (15–20%)

• Establish and enforce SDLC gates: PR approvals, code review, test coverage requirements, and static analysis
• Own the Definition of Done and ensure consistent engineering standards across all contributors—internal, distributed, and founder-built systems
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and deployment processes
• Define and enforce code repository standards, hosting methodology, and infrastructure governance
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools as standard engineering infrastructure—not optional enhancements

Team Leadership (15–20%)

• Directly manage the distributed engineering team, setting expectations and holding the team accountable for delivery quality and velocity
• Define, track, and report engineering metrics to the leadership team — velocity, quality, reliability, and delivery predictability.
• Build institutional engineering knowledge in-house, reducing single-point-of-failure risk on any one contributor or partner
• Conduct regular 1:1s, code reviews, and performance assessments with all engineers
• Develop a strategic hiring plan as the team grows—identifying where to add headcount vs. leverage partners
• Partner closely with Product to align technical roadmaps with business goals, ensuring engineers understand the “why” behind every initiative

Who You Are

Required

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with progressive technical leadership responsibilities
• Deep, current hands-on proficiency in TypeScript and modern TypeScript frameworks (React, Next.js, Node.js)—you’re writing code, not just reviewing it
• Active use of AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) as part of your daily workflow—you see these as velocity multipliers, not novelties
• Experience managing or closely partnering with distributed or offshore engineering teams
• Track record of leading platform migrations, system consolidations, or major re-architecture efforts
• Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure (GCP preferred) including serverless, containers, and managed databases
• Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL and/or MySQL), including data migration between systems
• Experience establishing engineering processes from the ground up: CI/CD, code review, testing standards, deployment methodology
• Comfort operating with high autonomy in a resource-constrained environment—you make pragmatic trade-offs, not perfect ones
• Must be based in Pittsburgh, PA (or willing to relocate) and available in-office 2–3 days per week

Strongly Preferred

• Fintech, financial services, or regulated industry experience—you understand compliance requirements, data sensitivity, and the stakes of handling real money
• Experience with multi-sided marketplace platforms (balancing investor and borrower/issuer needs)
• Experience operating platforms with multiple interconnected services and third-party dependencies — you know how to manage integration complexity without letting it become fragile.
• Familiarity with loan servicing, payment processing, or investment platform integrations
• Experience with mobile development or managing mobile engineering (React Native)
• Experience with serverless-first or edge computing architectures

The Right Mindset

• You’re a builder who happens to lead, not a manager who used to code. Your first instinct is to open the IDE, not schedule a meeting.
• You believe in iterative delivery over big-bang releases. Ship value early, ship it often, celebrate it repeatedly.
• You see engineering governance as enabling speed, not slowing it down. Standards exist so teams can move faster with confidence.
• You’re diplomatic but firm. You can establish standards across diverse contributors—including those with deep institutional context—without alienating people.
• You’re energized by the “zero-to-one” phase of building engineering culture and process, not just maintaining what already works.
• You genuinely care about small business success and community wealth-building. The mission is the job.

What Honeycomb Offers

• Equity in a high-growth fintech startup at a pivotal inflection point
• Comprehensive health insurance and 401(k) plan
• Unlimited PTO
• The technical mandate to build it right—with the autonomy and trust to make real decisions
• A collaborative, mission-driven team where your work has tangible impact on local communities across America