Head of Engineering

What we're building BlancVPN is a privacy product used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world — and behind it sits a fast-growing engineering organization that needs a clear technical center of gravity. We're looking for a Head of Engineering to hold that center: to keep coherence across the entire system — product experience, backend services, delivery pipelines, and the engineering team behind them. This goes beyond strategy. You'll make the pivotal architectural decisions, drive execution, and stay hands-on in the codebase when the challenge demands it. What we're looking for Core Requirements - Fluent Russian and English ( B2+ ) - 7+ years in engineering, including significant time building and leading teams - Strong hands-on experience with production architecture and engineering operations - Solid architectural judgment with Python in production systems - Deep practical knowledge of PostgreSQL , Redis , and distributed systems - Experience designing reliable release processes and CI/CD pipelines - Confidence with Docker in both local and production environments - Proven track record of hiring, mentoring, and elevating engineering teams - Ability to switch fluidly between product strategy, system architecture, and execution - Comfort working closely with founders, product managers, and design Nice-to-have - Strong system design instincts with a bias for pragmatic solutions - Experience scaling an engineering organization through an early or growth stage - Familiarity with the wider data and observability stack (e.g. ClickHouse, monitoring, alerting) - Experience in privacy, security, or subscription products What you'll be doing Technical Direction - Define and own the technical strategy across product systems, backend, infrastructure, and internal tools - Translate product goals into clear engineering plans, managing priorities and tradeoffs - Establish standards for architecture, code quality, testing, monitoring, and incident response - Stay hands-on with code when critical architectural decisions require it Team & Delivery - Foster a culture of fast, reliable, and predictable product delivery - Hire, mentor, and structure the engineering team to support sustainable growth - Continuously improve development environments, deployment processes, and operational practices - Collaborate with the executive team on company planning, resourcing, and tech-risk management What we offer 🌍 Work from anywhere — fully remote (except Russia, Belarus, China, Syria, Iran, Yemen, North Korea, and some other regions) 🗓️ Flexible 5-day week — start when it suits you; loosely aligned to CET 💻 Full home-office setup — all the equipment you need, on us 🌴 40 flexible paid days off + paid sick leave ❤️ Benefits — VHI, wellness, language courses, mental health support and a referral program 📈 Room to grow — annual development budget + in-person team meet-ups. Stages 👋 Welcome Call 📝 Take-Home 🛠️ Technical Call 🧩 Culture & Process Call 🤝 Pre-Offer Call