Head of Engineering

Job Title: Head Of Engineering

Team: Engineering

Location: Onsite - Sawtelle (Between Santa Monica & West LA)

Employment Type: Fulltime, Salaried, Exempt

Reports To: SVP of Product & Technology

About Plug

Plug is an automotive fintech startup building the marketplace for electric vehicles. Consumers, dealers, and commercial partners trade in, sell, and auction used EVs through a platform built exclusively for electric, with nothing adapted from legacy automotive.

Consumers can get an instant cash offer in minutes, backed by data-driven pricing, battery state-of-health analysis, with pickup, payment, and title transfer handled end-to-end. Franchise and independent dealers across the United States bid in real time on inventory sourced directly from these consumers, dealers, and commercial partners. The result is a single platform that gives sellers a fast, fair exit and gives dealers a dedicated channel for sourcing used EV inventory.

Founded in 2023 and led by former Tesla executives, Plug has facilitated $100M in EV sales since launch and is backed by a $20M Series A from Lightspeed Venture Partners. We're building the most AI-native startup team in Los Angeles, full of operators, engineers, and ML researchers laying the transaction rails for the used EV market's exponential growth.

Why Plug

Here's why you should be part of Plug:

• You'll own a piece of the biggest infrastructure opportunity in automotive.

• You'll work on a platform built exclusively for EVs, with nothing adapted from legacy automotive.

• You'll be part of an AI-native company. We're rethinking how work gets done at a fundamental level.

• You'll work directly with operators who have scaled multi-billion dollar businesses in automotive, EV, and marketplaces.

• You'll have real ownership, high autonomy, and a direct line to company outcomes.
  

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Head of Engineering to lead our engineering team and help shape the technical foundation of a fast-growing Series A company. You will report to the SVP of Product and Technology and partner closely to align on product vision and how that is executed by engineering.

This is a leadership role, not an individual-contributor one. You will set direction, build engineering culture, grow the organization, and partner on AI-native process. You will have the ability to roll up your sleeves and arbitrate architecture decisions but we don't expect you to be coding much or making a lot of commits. What matters is that your technical judgment is current enough that the team trusts it.

The team is small, talented and moves fast. You will be stepping into an organization that has strong individual contributors and real technical momentum. Your job is to raise the ceiling and to encourage what is working. We are hiring additional engineers, so you will be growing the team from day one.

We are building a culture that cares about collaboration, encourages intellectual honesty, celebrates technical excellence, and is driven by the company's goals. We believe diversity of perspective and experience are key to building great products and technology and a thriving team. Sounds cool? Let's work together.

Key Responsibilities

• Set the technical vision and engineering direction for the team, in partnership with the SVP of Product and Technology, ensuring engineering strategy is tightly coupled to business goals.

• Partner with the SVP of Product and Technology on product direction, roadmap sequencing, and technology strategy; own engineering execution and delivery against that plan.

• Collaborate across functions product, operations, and business leadership so engineering work is well-aligned, well-communicated, and measurably impactful.

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing engineering team setting a high technical bar, building a culture of ownership, and retaining strong individual contributors by keeping them challenged and autonomous.

• Be an architectural leader drive the evolution of systems architecture, make sound technology tradeoffs, and help the team balance velocity against long-term maintainability.

• Be close enough to the systems to arbitrate architecture decisions and engage credibly in technical debate without owning day-to-day implementation.

• Systematically identify and reduce technical debt with a pragmatic, incremental approach.

• Partner with the SVP of Product and Technology to build an AI-native SDLC bringing hands-on experience with agentic coding tools, working with product to structure requirements and context that improve agentic results, and iterating on practices over time to get measurably better outcomes.

• Own engineering team planning, recruiting, and growth.
  

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering, with 3+ years in an engineering leadership role.

• Prior startup experience has built or materially shaped an engineering function at an early-stage company where process was still being defined and priorities shifted regularly.

• Comfort contributing to a production codebase you may not be doing so day to day today, but you can engage with code, review, and architecture at the level of a strong senior engineer. Higher-altitude leaders are welcome; we are sizing this team to grow.

• Recent, practical hands-on experience coding with AI you have been through the shift yourself rather than observed it. If your current role sits above the code, side projects count.

• Has joined an existing engineering team with established contributors, with a track record of building trust quickly, preserving contributor autonomy and momentum, and raising the bar without disrupting what is working.

• Has hired, grown, and retained engineering teams scaling headcount thoughtfully while preserving culture and contributor quality.

• Production experience with cloud infrastructure including infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), CI/CD, feature flags, and observability tooling decisions made and implemented without reliance on a dedicated DevOps team.

• Has built and managed systems that integrate deeply with HubSpot (or similar CRM) as a technical platform rather than just a CRM, including designing boundaries between CRM automation and application code to maintain system reliability.

• Nice to have: TypeScript with full-stack production experience across backend, frontend, relational databases, and API/webhook integrations. Our stack is TypeScript (Node.js + Next.js + React), Neon (cloud Postgres), Vercel, and AWS (ECS, S3, Redshift, Step Functions, Temporal). Experience with any of these is a plus, not a requirement we care more about how quickly you pick up a stack than which one you arrive with.

• Strong communication skills able to represent engineering credibly to technical and non-technical stakeholders and write clearly and concisely.

• Authorized to work in the US for any employer.

• Prior experience in automotive, EV, marketplace, or fintech systems is a plus.

Compensation and Benefits

• Annual Salary: $250,000 - $280,000

• Equity: Eligible

Benefits:

• Health, Vision, and Dental insurance

• 401(k) plan

• Daily lunch stipend

• Equity (based on role and performance)

• Unlimited PTO

• Fully stocked kitchen

• Dog-friendly office

• Ongoing opportunities for growth and development

This full-time position is based in Sawtelle (between Santa Monica and West Los Angeles) and is an in-person role. We welcome candidates from all locations to apply, provided they are willing to relocate for the role. Relocation assistance may be available for the right candidate on select roles. Sponsorship is not available at this time.

Acknowledgments

Plug is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We believe diverse teams build better products - full stop.