Lead, Product Engineering

We are seeking a hands\-on Lead, Product Engineering with a strong product mindset to lead the development and evolution of consumer\-facing digital products. This role requires deep technical expertise, leadership capability, and ownership across the full stack—application and infrastructure. The ideal candidate has built and scaled real\-world consumer products, demonstrates strong engineering judgment, and is comfortable challenging product requirements to deliver better solutions. This is a hands\-on leadership role requiring active involvement in architecture, coding, and engineering practices—not just team management. **Responsibilities:** * Lead end\-to\-end product engineering for consumer\-facing and backend systems * Take ownership of existing platforms and drive improvements in scalability, reliability, and performance * Contribute hands\-on to application development, architecture design, and infrastructure (cloud \& IaC) * Define and enforce coding standards, design principles, and engineering best practices * Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Business teams to refine requirements and challenge assumptions * Build, mentor, and manage high\-performing engineering teams * Drive adoption of cloud\-native architectures, DevSecOps, and automation\-first practices * Ensure systems meet security, compliance, and regulatory requirements (especially in a banking environment) * Own architectural decision\-making and drive long\-term platform scalability, resilience, and engineering strategy * Ensure production stability, operational excellence, and incident ownership for critical systems **AI\-Augmented Engineering \& Vibe Coding Culture** At HugoBank, we recognize that AI\-assisted development is now a core part of modern engineering workflows. We support the responsible use of AI\-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Google Gemini, and Claude to enhance productivity, accelerate development, and improve developer experience. However, we emphasize that: * AI tools are accelerators, not substitutes for engineering thinking * Engineers must fully understand, validate, and own all generated code * Strong fundamentals in system design, debugging, and problem\-solving remain essential As a Lead, you will: * Define best practices for responsible AI\-assisted development * Guide teams on effective and secure use of AI tools * Ensure AI improves quality, maintainability, and security—not just speed * Build a culture of AI\-augmented engineering with strong ownership and accountability **Team Development \& Engineering Culture** The Lead, Product Engineering will help shape a high\-performing engineering organization by: * AI\-Augmented Engineering: Promote responsible AI usage with clear guardrails, ensuring validation, security compliance, and avoidance of blind copy\-paste development * Engineering Fundamentals: Strengthen system design, distributed systems, data structures, and debugging skills while balancing AI\-driven speed with engineering depth * Engineering Standards: Drive clean code practices, robust testing, CI/CD maturity, and structured design thinking * Mentorship \& Growth: Develop engineers across all levels in cloud\-native development, microservices, DevSecOps, and AI\-assisted workflows * Ownership Culture: Foster end\-to\-end ownership, production accountability, and continuous improvement mindset **Requirements** * Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field * 12\-15\+ years of experience in software/product engineering * 3\-5\+ years of experience in a leadership role * Proven experience in building and scaling consumer\-facing digital products * Strong hands\-on experience in modern programming languages (Java, Kotlin, Node.js, Python, Go) * Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and cloud\-native architectures * Strong experience with infrastructure\-as\-code (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation) * Experience with microservices, APIs, and distributed systems * Strong understanding of secure coding and cloud security principles * Experience with CI/CD, automated testing, and release management * Demonstrated ability to lead teams while remaining technically hands\-on * Strong problem\-solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills **Preferred Qualifications** * Experience in fintech, digital banking, or regulated environments * Exposure to high\-scale, high\-availability systems * Familiarity with compliance, security, and data protection requirements