VP of Systems Engineering - Canada

🌐 Who We AreBankjoy is a Y Combinator and Bessemer Venture Partner backed FinTech startup. We are changing the way community banks and credit unions do business, enabling them to become tech-driven and digital first. Bankjoy provides modern digital banking products including mobile banking, online banking, online account opening, loan origination, and conversational AI. Our mission is to revolutionize banking tech infrastructure by leading digital transformation at financial institutions — big and small.💼 The RoleWe are looking for a VP of System Engineering to own three of Bankjoy's most critical engineering functions: Release Management, QA, and DevOps, and to build the quality engineering framework that raises the bar across the entire engineering organization.This is a hands-on leadership role at a critical inflection point in Bankjoy's growth. You will directly lead Release Management, a QA organization including a QA Lead and automation engineers, and a DevOps team including a Senior Platform Architect and DevOps Engineer. You will also maintain a dotted-line relationship with manual QA engineers embedded across engineering value streams, setting quality standards and ensuring consistent practices, while those engineers report directly to their respective tech leads.The ideal candidate has deep roots in quality engineering and platform reliability, has personally built or rebuilt automation programs in multi-platform environments, and has the organizational credibility to drive a cultural shift from manual-heavy to automation-first quality practices. You know what it takes to deliver reliable, compliant software to regulated financial institutions, and you build systems that make quality visible, not judgment-based.🧠 What You'll DoEngineering LeadershipLead three core engineering functions (Release Management, QA, and DevOps), owning delivery quality, release discipline, and platform reliability across Bankjoy's engineering organizationMaintain a dotted-line relationship with manual QA engineers embedded across product engineering value streams, setting quality standards and processes org-wide while coordinating with tech leads on day-to-day prioritiesProvide hands-on technical leadership, engaging directly with your team on solution design, architecture decisions, production incident response, and complex troubleshootingPartner closely with the VP of Engineering on cross-cutting initiatives including AI coding adoption, architectural standards, and release coordinationParticipate in senior leadership alongside the COO, VP of Engineering, and product leadershipQuality Framework: Entire Engineering OrganizationDesign and implement Bankjoy's engineering quality framework across all value streams, setting standards for unit testing, integration testing, automated regression, and release readinessOwn a modern multi-platform automation framework covering Angular, Swift, and KotlinDefine and enforce quality gates: explicit go/no-go release criteria that every value stream must meet, including automated coverage thresholds, defect standards, and QE sign-offDevelop and coach the QA organization, elevating the team from manual QA toward a quality engineering model with automation-first practicesEstablish test data management, environment parity standards, and CI/CD quality integration across all value streamsBuild a quality dashboard visible to engineering and leadership (automation coverage, open defect counts, regression completion rates) so release readiness is transparent, not judgment-basedRelease Quality & Cross-Functional CollaborationPartner with the Release Manager to implement a structured release gate process: mid-cycle readiness reviews and formal go/no-go decisions with explicit sign-offs from engineering, QA, and productWork closely with Technical Support to close the feedback loop between production issues and engineering prioritization, ensuring client-impacting defects drive process changes, not just fixesOwn post-release retrospectives for every release that generates client impact, extracting systemic lessons and driving specific process changes with named owners and deadlinesPartner with product leadership to enforce scope freeze discipline and ensure QA is involved in sprint planning and story grooming, not just at sprint endDevOps & Platform ReliabilityLead DevOps strategy, owning CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, monitoring, alerting, and platform reliability in partnership with Michael and JasonDrive platform observability, ensuring engineering and leadership have real-time visibility into system health, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and MTTROversee Site Reliability Engineering practices, building toward a future SRE function as Bankjoy scalesEnsure infrastructure and deployment practices meet security, compliance, and uptime standards required by regulated financial institution clientsAI-Driven Engineering CultureChampion AI-assisted coding and testing adoption across your teams, working alongside the VP of Engineering on the org-wide AI initiativeEmbed AI productivity into engineering performance criteria: adoption, output velocity, code quality with AI, and knowledge sharingEnsure AI tools are used in QA as well as development: AI-assisted test generation, automated test maintenance, and prompt-driven regression coverage🎯 What You Bring10+ years of engineering experience with at least 4 years in engineering leadership, managing QA, DevOps, or platform reliability teamsDeep background in quality engineering; you have personally built or rebuilt automation frameworks, not just overseen them from a distanceProven experience migrating automation frameworks in a multi-platform environment (web and native mobile, iOS and Android)Demonstrated success driving a cultural shift from manual-heavy to automation-first QA in a fintech, banking, or similarly regulated environmentExperience implementing release gate processes and enforcing go/no-go decisions under schedule pressure; you have called a no-go and held the lineHands-on experience with modern automation tooling: Playwright, Cypress, Appium, Maestro, or equivalent; familiarity with Angular, Swift, and Kotlin environments is a strong advantageStrong DevOps and platform reliability background: CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), monitoring, and observabilityExperience driving AI coding and testing tool adoption across engineering teams: changed culture and productivity, not just personal usageStrong technical depth, able to engage directly in solution design, architecture discussions, production incident response, and root-cause analysisStrong cross-functional credibility; you have worked closely with technical support, release management, and product to solve systemic quality problemsExcellent communication and organizational influence; you can hold senior stakeholders accountable to quality standards without relying on hierarchy🌟 Nice to HaveExperience in fintech, core banking, or digital banking platformsFamiliarity with credit union or community bank client environmentsExperience with SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, or similar regulatory compliance contextsBackground working with multi-platform products serving both financial institutions and end consumersExperience managing QA teams through a transition from manual QA to quality engineering rolesExperience building or managing an SRE function from scratch🎁 What You GetA fast-paced and collaborative environment Competitive compensationStock options at a well-funded startupWe cover 100% of medical, dental, and vision premiums for individuals on our base plan, with significant contributions toward all other plan options (USA). We cover 100% of extended medical, dental, and vision premiums for you and your family under our single, comprehensive plan (Canada).Retirement plan with 4% company matching 8 weeks paid parental leave for birthing parents, 4 weeks for non-birthing3-5 weeks PTO depending on tenure5 health days15 holidaysEnd of year shutdownPerformance-based bonuses Remote first culture ⚖️ Equal Employment Opportunities at BankjoyBankjoy is committed to hiring talented and qualified individuals with diverse backgrounds for all of its tech, non-tech, and leadership roles. Bankjoy provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age or disability.#LI-Remote