Advocate · 2 months ago
VP of Engineering
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Director/ExecutiveAdvocate is transforming how Americans access government benefits through innovative AI technology. They are seeking a VP of Engineering to lead platform architecture and engineering, focusing on creating elegant, scalable systems that integrate AI seamlessly into workflows.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)B2CInformation TechnologyInternetSocial Media
Responsibilities
Partner with the CTO to design enterprise-grade systems that seamlessly blend event-driven architectures, stream processing, workflow orchestration, and AI pipelines
Build and mentor a high-performing engineering team, creating a culture where engineers grow while delivering exceptional results
Champion the use of AI in every aspect of development
Establish workflows and practices that make AI collaboration second nature for the entire team, teaching others to achieve 10x productivity through AI partnership
Design systems that handle data changing over time through human and machine steps
Transform existing systems into clean, scalable patterns while maintaining 99.99% uptime
Create architectures that are profoundly simple despite underlying complexity
Design security-first systems where protection is inherent, not added
Question every assumption from first principles and see connections others miss
Make architectural decisions with 70% information and adjust as you learn
Qualification
Required
Accomplished architect and engineering leader who has designed sophisticated platforms that model human workflows with AI to transform facts into meaningful insights
Led teams through platform transformations and built best-in-class user experiences
Fully integrated AI into workflow - it's not a tool you use, it's a partner that amplifies your capabilities 10x
Partner with the CTO to design enterprise-grade systems that seamlessly blend event-driven architectures, stream processing, workflow orchestration, and AI pipelines
Build and mentor a high-performing engineering team, creating a culture where engineers grow while delivering exceptional results
Architectural reviews are teaching moments; pair programming sessions demonstrate AI-amplified development
Champion the use of AI in every aspect of development
Establish workflows and practices that make AI collaboration second nature for the entire team
Design systems that handle data changing over time through human and machine steps
Transform existing systems into clean, scalable patterns while maintaining 99.99% uptime
Create architectures that are profoundly simple despite underlying complexity
Developed a profoundly effective personal workflow with Claude Code, Codex, GPT-5, and other AI systems
Fluent in distributed systems patterns (event sourcing, CQRS, saga patterns)
Understand when to use Kafka vs. Kinesis vs. neither, and understand AWS services deeply without being dependent on them
Experienced with modern orchestration (Temporal, Airflow), data processing (Spark, Flink), and application frameworks
Predict bottlenecks before they exist and design security-first systems where protection is inherent, not added
See connections others miss - between data points, algorithms, and human processes
Question every assumption from first principles
Track record of successful bets on architectural decisions that seemed risky but proved transformative
Obsessively driven to solve problems
Understand AI may produce insights beyond human comprehension and build systems that account for this
Admit when wrong and change course quickly
Explain distributed consensus to an intern and data sharding to a board member
Architecture documents are clear, visual, and impossible to misinterpret
Engineers follow your vision because your designs are obviously correct
Identify talent, develop potential, and create teams greater than the sum of their parts
Make architectural decisions with 70% information and adjust as you learn
Build consensus without compromise
Expertise spans multiple fields - software engineering, data science, user experience, organizational behavior
Measure iterations in hours and days
Created novel architectural patterns and think in terms of 'what's possible' not 'what's been done'
Experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka/Kinesis/EventBridge)
Experience with multi-tier data platforms (Aurora, DynamoDB, OpenSearch, S3)
Experience with orchestration (Temporal, Step Functions, custom engines)
Experience with real-time processing (Flink/Kinesis Analytics)
Experience with container orchestration (ECS/EKS)
Experience with Infrastructure as Code (CDK/Terraform)
Experience with AI/ML pipelines throughout
Company
Advocate
Advocate provides a technology-enabled platform that assists Americans in applying for federal disability benefits.
Founded in 2022
2-10 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Advocate has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2024 (1)
2023 (2)
2022 (1)
2021 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageTotal Funding
$4MKey Investors
Lerer Hippeau
2023-06-02Seed· $4M
Leadership Team
Charley Lanusse
CTO
Emilie Poteat
Founder
Recent News
2025-11-12
2025-06-21
Company data provided by crunchbase