About this role
Head of Engineering
Department: Engineering | Location: Palo Alto HQ | Type: Full-time, On-site
About the Role We're looking for a Head of Engineering to build, lead, and scale Pika's engineering organization. You'll own the entire engineering function — from technical strategy and architecture to hiring, team structure, and delivery execution. This is a role for someone who can operate at both the 30,000-foot level (org design, roadmap, technical vision) and the ground level (debugging a production issue, reviewing a critical PR).
Our current team is dynamic, talented, and experiencing rapid growth. We seek a leader who can establish standards, shape the organizational culture, and foster an environment where engineers can develop swiftly and consistently deliver high-quality results.
What You'll Do • Own the engineering organization — team structure, hiring plan, career ladders, and engineering culture • Set technical strategy — define architecture principles, technology choices, and technical roadmap aligned with product goals • Build the team — recruit senior engineers and leads, establish interview processes, and create an environment that attracts top talent • Drive execution — ensure the team consistently delivers high-quality software on time; remove blockers, manage dependencies, and maintain velocity • Establish engineering excellence — code quality standards, testing practices, incident response, on-call rotations, and operational maturity • Scale systems — oversee the evolution from early-stage infrastructure to production-grade systems capable of supporting millions of users • Manage technical debt — make strategic decisions about when to invest in long-term architecture vs. ship fast • Collaborate with leadership — work with founders, product, design, and research to align engineering execution with company strategy • Stay technical — you don't need to write code daily, but you understand the codebase, review architecture decisions, and can go deep when needed
Position Requirements
• A minimum of 10 years of outstanding software engineering experience with a strong emphasis on individual contribution, coupled with readiness to transition into a leadership capacity to influence and scale our technical vision and culture (recent, hands-on programming experience is required).
• Experience in building engineering teams from inception or scaling teams from a small size (5-10) to a medium size (30-50+). • A solid technical background in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), API platforms, and real-time systems. • A demonstrated history of delivering products utilized by millions of users. • Established hiring capabilities, with expertise in sourcing, evaluating, and recruiting senior engineering professionals. • A proven ability to cultivate a robust engineering culture that enables individuals to perform at their highest potential. • A strategic approach, with the ability to translate business goals into technical strategies and organizational frameworks. • Adaptability in ambiguous situations, excelling in early-stage environments characterized by rapidly shifting priorities. • Strong communicator who can represent engineering's needs to the company while clearly articulating the 'why' behind technical decisions to the team.
Nice to Have • Experience with AI/ML products, LLM-based systems, or agent platforms • Experience at a high-growth startup (Series A through Series C) • Background in platform engineering, developer tools, or consumer products • Experience managing remote or distributed teams • Prior CTO or VP Engineering role at a startup • Familiarity with our stack: TypeScript/Node.js, Python, AWS EKS, Kubernetes