VP Engineering, Data Cloud

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here.  We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world. 

We are building an AI-native Data Cloud and need a VP of Engineering who owns architecture, execution, and business outcomes end-to-end. The buck stops with this role for platform reliability, developer experience, and Data Cloud adoption.

DigitalOcean’s Data Cloud will power AI applications end-to-end—from data ingestion to real-time inference—enabling developers to build production-grade RAG systems, AI agents, and analytics workflows on a single, integrated platform. This role is responsible for delivering that platform by leveraging and extending DigitalOcean’s existing infrastructure, PaaS, and AI capabilities.

This is not a traditional data platform role. You will define and execute the strategy to move DigitalOcean up the stack—from infrastructure provider to a differentiated AI application and inference platform. Success will be measured through roadmap velocity, system reliability, developer adoption, and measurable business impact.

We are looking for a leader who translates strategy into shipped systems, with clear accountability for outcomes.

Architecture and delivery of a unified platform spanning:

• Ingestion (connectors, CDC, streaming)
• Storage (object, OLAP, vector, graph)
• Processing (ELT pipelines, real-time and batch)
• Query & analytics (SQL, hybrid search, RAG)
• Governance (catalog, lineage, versioning, access control)

• Knowledgebase-as-a-Service (RAG pipelines)
• Vector and hybrid retrieval systems
• Feature and embedding pipelines
• Real-time inference data paths

• Deliver GA-grade services with strong SLAs, cost efficiency, and simplicity
• Drive roadmap aligned to Digital Native Enterprise (DNE) customers
• Establish and manage clear metrics: adoption, retention, ARPU, performance, reliability

• Build and scale a high-performing global organization (US and India)
• Implement single-threaded ownership (STO) across services
• Partner deeply with Product, GTM, and Platform Engineering

What Success Looks Like (12 months)

• Launch a cohesive Data Cloud platform—not a collection of fragmented services
• Achieve meaningful adoption across AI-native workloads (RAG, inference, analytics)
• Reduce developer time-to-value from weeks to hours
• Establish clear differentiation versus hyperscalers on simplicity and cost

• Proven track record of building and operating cloud-scale data platforms (OLAP, lakehouse, streaming, or ML systems), with strong architectural judgment across storage, processing, and query layers
• Experience integrating open-source ecosystems (e.g., Spark, Airflow, dbt) into managed cloud services at scale
• Experience with AI/ML data pipelines (feature stores, embeddings, RAG)
• Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguity, make high-quality decisions with incomplete data, and drive multi-quarter execution with measurable outcomes
• Proven experience scaling engineering organizations and delivering under real-world constraints

Critical requirement:You have personally driven complex distributed systems from concept to production—not just managed teams that did.

Why This Role Matters

The Data Cloud is the control plane for AI applications. If DigitalOcean gets this right, it becomes the platform where developers build and scale intelligent applications—not just where infrastructure runs. If not, it remains an interchangeable infrastructure.

• $279,200.00 - $349,000

*This is a remote role

JR: 2026-7683

#LI-Remote

 

• We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
• We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
• We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
• We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
• DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.