Vice President Engineering

At PPRO, our mission is to simplify access to local payment methods and our vision is to enable the sale of goods and services to anyone in the world using their preferred way to pay. We empower partners such as Ant Group, PayPal and Stripe to access new markets, connect with more customers, and accelerate their growth.
Our strength lies in our diverse global team with 50+ nationalities and 10+ international locations- all united around one goal – to deliver the best possible products and services to our partners and customers. While our company mission is to keep innovating global commerce, our internal mission is to #chooseaction, #beopen, #thinkcustomer, #gofurther and #wintogether
The Purpose: At PPRO, our mission is to simplify access to local payment methods and our vision is to enable the sale of goods and services to anyone in the world using their preferred way to pay. We empower partners such as Ant Group, PayPal and Stripe to access new markets, connect with more customers, and accelerate their growth.
Our strength lies in our diverse global team with 50+ nationalities and 10+ international locations- all united around one goal – to deliver the best possible products and services to our partners and customers. While our company mission is to keep innovating global commerce, our internal mission is to #chooseaction, #beopen, #thinkcustomer, #gofurther and #wintogether
The Purpose:
As Vice President Engineering, you will provide leadership, vision, and executional ownership across PPRO’s engineering organisation, spanning multiple product and platform domains. Partnering closely with Technology Leadership, Product Leadership, Domain Leads, and the Executive Team, you will ensure PPRO’s engineering capabilities power world-class, secure, and scalable payment products while accelerating product innovation and delivery.
This role focuses on leading engineering to deliver transformative products. You will shape how engineering enables rapid expansion of payment capabilities, reduces customer integration complexity, and strengthens PPRO’s position as a trusted, high-integrity partner in the global payments ecosystem.
An important part of your mission will be to drive Product AI innovation, applying AI to improve product performance, intelligence, and customer outcomes. In parallel, you will play a key role in increasing the adoption of AI-enabled tools across the engineering organisation to enhance developer productivity, quality, and delivery speed.
Blending senior leadership with strong technical judgment, you will coach and empower leaders, embed a culture of ownership and accountability, and ensure engineering consistently delivers high-impact outcomes in an always-on, regulated, transaction-critical environment.
What You Will Be Doing:

Lead Engineering Vision, Direction, and Outcomes

Set and communicate a clear engineering vision across multiple product and platform areas, aligned to business priorities and product strategy

Balance long-term architectural evolution with near-term product delivery, ensuring engineering decisions accelerate customer and commercial outcomes

Champion product-led innovation that improves speed-to-market, platform capabilities, and ease of customer integration

Take direct ownership for driving Product AI initiatives, ensuring AI meaningfully improves product intelligence, performance, and differentiation

Drive Product Innovation and Delivery at Scale

Partner closely with Product to translate strategy into executable roadmaps that deliver measurable customer and business value

Guide architectural evolution toward cloud-native, event-driven systems and real-time data capabilities that support rapid product iteration

Ensure engineering execution is predictable, high-quality, and aligned with clear delivery commitments across domains

Build and Inspire a Strong Engineering Leadership Organisation

Hire, develop, and retain high-calibre engineering leaders across domains, with a focus on leadership impact rather than organisational size alone

Coach Directors, Senior Managers, and Managers to operate with autonomy, accountability, and strong product mindset

Foster an inclusive, high-trust culture where leaders are empowered to make decisions and teams are motivated to deliver their best work

Elevate Engineering Excellence and Modern Practices

Set direction for engineering standards, delivery practices, and technical governance that support innovation without sacrificing reliability or compliance

Lead strategic investments in platform health, reliability, and engineering productivity.

Drive the adoption of AI across the engineering department, fundamentally improving how software is designed, built, tested, and operated through modern AI-enabled tools and workflows

Own Strategic Operational Outcomes

Define and influence engineering-wide OKRs and KPIs spanning delivery performance, reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency

Build a culture where customer impact, operational discipline, and product quality are shared responsibilities

Lead cross-domain initiatives that streamline platforms, improve scalability, and reduce customer integration time

Influence Security, Risk, and Compliance

Partner with Security, Risk, Legal, and Compliance to ensure regulatory requirements are embedded into engineering decisions and delivery models

Ensure security and compliance are foundational engineering principles that enable, rather than block, product innovation

Oversee scalable, automated controls appropriate for a regulated, transaction-critical environment

Act as a Senior Stakeholder and Partner

Operate as a senior leader across Product, Commercial, Partnerships, and Engineering, aligning teams around shared priorities and outcomes

Engage with key customers and ecosystem partners to translate real-world needs into scalable product and platform capabilities

Set the tone for clear decision-making, constructive challenge, and strong collaboration across leadership forums

What We Are Looking For:

Proven experience setting engineering direction and leading leaders across complex product and platform environments

Proven experience setting strategic vision and engineering direction, leading "leaders of leaders" (VPs and Directors) and scaling high-performing cultures across complex product and platform environments

Strong ability to prioritise, make high-stake trade-offs and unite senior stakeholders to drive outcomes through empowered teams.
Experience delivering high-quality, customer-facing products in regulated or high-availability environments (payments experience a plus, not a prerequisite).


Strong technical foundation with the ability to engage credibly on architecture, platforms, and engineering practices when needed.
Expertise in cloud-native architectures, microservices ecosystems (e.g. Java, Spring Boot, AWS), and modern engineering platforms.

Clear passion for using AI to improve both products and engineering effectiveness, with the drive to personally lead execution

Data-driven, outcome-oriented leadership mindset with strong cross-functional influence

Clear, candid communicator with the presence to operate effectively at executive level

Nice to Have:

Understanding of payment ecosystems, PSP economics, and regulatory considerations across regions

Experience building or scaling payment platforms, processing gateways, or other compliance-critical systems

Prior exposure to introducing AI-enabled tooling or product capabilities at scale

What's in it for you?
Hybrid working - We offer a hybrid structure with a 3 days / week on site expectation, so you can strike the balance between office and home working. In addition to our 30-day holiday allowance, we also provide a work from abroad policy, enabling employees to work remotely for up to another 30 days per year.
Learning and Development - We offer a €1,000 annual budget to support your professional growth—because investing in your development benefits us all. In addition, we provide leadership cafés, on-the-job training, and other opportunities to help you grow your skills and thrive in your role.
Insurance - Because better safe than sorry - we want our employees to benefit from various insurances including accident insurance, disability insurance, direct insurance (bAV) and travel insurance. 
Gym membership - PPRO helps contribute towards the costs of your gym membership, supporting your physical fitness journey while easing the burden on your wallet
Enhance Family Leave - We understand the importance of family - that's why we offer enhanced family leave to support you during key life moments.

Mental Health Platform - We’ve teamed up with a top well-being platform to provide one-on-one therapy, chat therapy, therapist-led courses, guided meditations, and more.
Pet-friendly office - Because work is better with your paw-tners by your side

Our Principles: 
We get things done: We are courageous; we take ownership, make decisions and get things done.
We act with trust and integrity: We listen first and challenge respectfully. We seek out and leverage diverse perspectives. We welcome and offer honest and open feedback, always assuming positive intent
We put the customer first: We are laser focused on delivering outstanding outcomes for our customers. We put the customer at the heart of what we do.
We make things better: We boldly explore  new ideas and have an unwavering commitment to continuous improvement.
We work as a team: We collaborate closely and value team success over individual achievement.