VP, Global Engineering Greater London, United Kingdom Area + 1 more

About Acast

Since 2014, Acast has been building the world’s most valuable podcast marketplace, creating the technology that connects podcast creators, advertisers, and listeners. Its marketplace spans more than 140,000 podcasts, 3,300 advertisers, and one billion quarterly listens. Crucially, those listens are monetized wherever they happen—across any podcast app or listening platform.

The role

The VP, Global Engineering leads the engineering organisation that builds and runs Acast's platforms. You turn product and technology strategy into reliable software, shipped at pace, by teams who are proud of their work and want to stay.

This is a growth mandate, not a turnaround. The platforms work. Your job is to push them further and faster, and to build the engineering culture and operating model that makes that sustainable.

What success looks like

Engineering is a trusted partner to product, content and sales, not a service function.

Teams ship high-quality software frequently and predictably.

Platforms are scalable, secure and future-ready, with legacy systems retired and technical debt under control.

Engineers use AI and modern tooling to work faster and better.

Engineering is a place where strong people want to build their careers.

Distributed teams, in-house and near-shore, work as one organisation.

Responsibilities

Engineering strategy and delivery

Own the engineering strategy and plan, tied directly to Acast's commercial objectives.

Improve the speed, predictability and transparency of delivery through clear planning, prioritisation and dependency management.

Establish and hold the engineering metrics: cycle time, delivery predictability, MTTR, test coverage and release readiness.

Set governance for architecture, scalability and technical debt, making the trade-off between near-term delivery and long-term platform health explicit enough to be argued commercially.

Communicate technical risk, trade-offs and investment needs clearly to the leadership team and, where relevant, the Board.

Champion agile ways of working and keep improving how teams plan, build, test and ship.

Platform, ad serving and scale

Own the engineering of the systems that carry the marketplace: hosting and distribution, real-time and dynamic ad insertion, the auction and yield layer, the data platform behind targeting and measurement, and the creator and advertiser self-serve products.

Be accountable for reliability and performance on platforms that need 24/7 uptime.

Treat infrastructure cost per impression as an engineering metric, and manage the unit economics of serving accordingly.

Retire legacy systems, reduce technical debt and modernise infrastructure.

Build the platform capability to extend into video and adjacent channels without forking the stack.

Partner with data and security on governance, privacy and the controls a listed business requires.

Organisational leadership

Lead, develop and structure a distributed engineering organisation across several countries.

Own the engineering workforce plan and budget, and manage spend against commercial outcomes.

Evolve the management layer and develop the senior engineers and managers already in place.

Recruit selectively where there are real capability gaps, and hold a high bar on quality, pace and accountability.

Establish clear levelling, career paths, performance management and succession, working with the People team.

Set the standard for how engineers work together: ownership, craft, openness and care for each other.

Partnership with product and commercial teams

Act as the senior engineering partner to product leadership, jointly shaping priorities, scope, sequencing and delivery approach.

Make sure technical constraints and opportunities reach the roadmap early.

Build working relationships with commercial and sales so engineering understands advertiser and creator outcomes directly, and can be held to them.

Support enterprise advertiser conversations, technical diligence and partner integrations where senior engineering credibility is needed.

Support technical due diligence and post-merger integration of acquired engineering teams and platforms.

AI and emerging technology

Own engineering's use of AI, both in how the team works and in what the platform does.

Deploy AI-assisted tooling and automation to lift developer velocity and code quality, with appropriate governance.

Assess where AI creates real advantage in ad decisioning, contextual targeting, measurement and creator tooling, and where it doesn't, and make the investment case accordingly.

Experience and background

Significant experience leading a large engineering organisation as a manager of managers, at a company of comparable or greater scale.

A track record of improving delivery performance, engineering quality and operating rhythm in an organisation that had outgrown its structure, not only one that was already mature.

Strong platform and infrastructure depth: high-volume distributed systems, real-time processing, and the reliability and cost discipline that come with serving at scale.

Experience in marketplaces, streaming or another two-sided platform where the technology carries the revenue model. Direct dynamic ad insertion or auction experience is a clear advantage, not a requirement.

Demonstrated success building management capability, developing senior engineering leaders and strengthening succession.

Experience leading distributed teams across locations, cultures and time zones, in-house and near-shore.

Experience with platform modernisation, legacy replacement and M&A integration.

Enough technical depth to engage credibly with a complex, multi-platform environment and make pragmatic architectural calls, without needing to be a hands-on architect.

Proven ability to partner with product leadership as an equal and work closely with commercial teams.

Clear communication with technical, commercial and executive audiences, and the composure to operate in a listed company where performance is public.

Skills and attributes

A people-first, high-EQ leader who builds culture as well as capability.

Strategic and commercially driven, able to connect engineering decisions to revenue and profitability.

Presence and credibility at executive level, with the ability to influence across the organisation.

Customer-obsessed, with a deep appreciation for the needs of creators, advertisers and audiences.

A data-led decision maker who balances insight, intuition and speed.

Comfortable with complexity and ambiguity in a global, fast-scaling organisation.

Hands-on mindset, able to move between detail and vision.

Resilient, curious, and willing to take a position.

Leadership Attributes

Consistently embodies the Acast values

Customer-obsessed and outcomes-driven.

Strategically rigorous with a pragmatic execution mindset.

Comfortable making trade-offs between speed, quality, and long-term investment.

Direct, transparent communicator who builds trust across functions.

Resilient leader who thrive

Location: London (UK) or Stockholm (Sweden)

Our engineering organisation is remote-first globally, but this role works closely with key cross-functional teams and stakeholders, so regular face-to-face collaboration matters. You will be based in the UK or Sweden and work from our London or Stockholm office on a regular basis.

Culture

Acast is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin or any of the other wonderful characteristics that make us different.

Culture is our number one priority as a business. We believe people come first, and we work every day to enable autonomy, continuous improvement and bring out the best in people. We’re global and have remote teams, so it’s even more important that we strive for an open, inclusive and caring environment where everyone feels visible and welcome.

We consider ourselves a modern organization driven by strong values to create the best, most fulfilling and nurturing culture.

We very much look forward to finding the next great person to join our cause!