VP of Technology

As the VP of Technology, you will lead engineering across Balsam Brands’ Digital and Enterprise technology organizations, overseeing the Directors of Digital Technology and Enterprise Technology. You will own a geographically distributed engineering organization spanning the Americas, Ireland, and Manila, and translate business priorities into an engineering strategy, investment roadmap, and measurable results—with accountability for peak-season reliability in a high-stakes omnichannel retail environment. 

 A core priority is evolving our AI-enabled software development lifecycle (SDLC), from requirements and design through code, testing, release, and operations, while building leaders’ and engineers’ ability to use AI effectively. You will partner closely with Product leadership to shape a joint engineering-product operating model that keeps teams aligned and moving. 

 You will develop strong engineering leaders and be accountable for the quality, reliability, and cost effectiveness of customer-facing and enterprise technology. You will align investments with product and business leaders and resolve cross-functional tradeoffs. Your Directors will own planning and delivery within their areas, supported by clear decision rights and coaching from you. 

 This full-time position reports to the Chief Technology Officer and is expected to work in a hybrid model, which includes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in-office. 

 What you’ll do:  

• Lead the team to achieve business outcomes by promoting collaboration and alignment with organizational values; translate company initiatives into a clear vision, aligning team actions with company priorities while fostering performance and professional development 

• Coach and develop the Digital and Enterprise Directors, strengthen the engineering leadership bench, and build succession plans. Establish clear expectations for performance, delegation, and talent development across the organization 

• Define a multi-year engineering strategy and investment roadmap with the CTO, Product, and business leaders. Balance customer and operational needs with platform modernization, technical debt, risk, and sustainable cost 

• Own the evolution of our AI-enabled SDLC across Digital and Enterprise. Set the roadmap, lead changes in workflows and practices, drive disciplined experimentation and adoption of AI tools, and hold Directors accountable for measurable improvements in delivery flow, quality, and business outcomes 

• Enable AI use through coaching, training, reusable workflows, and shared examples. Partner with AI and security leaders on data protection, review and validation standards, and human accountability for engineering decisions and outputs 

• Set architectural direction across digital commerce and enterprise systems. Establish standards for integration, scalability, and maintainability, and guide major technology, platform, and build-versus-buy decisions 

• Align priorities and engineering capacity across Digital and Enterprise. Resolve shared dependencies and competing demands, while empowering Directors to own quarterly planning, sizing, delegation, and delivery within their domains 

• Establish a consistent engineering operating model and measures of business impact, delivery predictability, software quality, and service reliability. Use these measures to identify systemic issues and hold leaders accountable for improvement 

• Set expectations for secure, reliable operations and seasonal readiness. Ensure leaders maintain effective observability, incident response, capacity planning, and tested disaster recovery and continuity plans—with  rigor around peak-season preparedness in a high-stakes retail environment 

• Advance automation-first quality engineering, CI/CD, deployment practices, and continuous improvement across the software development lifecycle. Ensure Directors and technical leaders have the capabilities and standards to deliver dependable releases 

• Own engineering financial planning, resource allocation, and vendor oversight across Digital and Enterprise within approved budgets. Shape workforce and sourcing plans, manage technology and delivery partner costs, hold vendors to clear performance expectations, and assess investments against business value and total cost of ownership 

• Communicate engineering priorities, performance, investment choices, and material risks to executive and business stakeholders. Build alignment on tradeoffs, ownership, and follow-through 

• Leads the team to achieve business outcomes by promoting collaboration and alignment with organizational values; translates company initiatives into a clear vision, aligning team actions with company priorities while fostering performance and professional development 

 What you bring to the table:  

• 10+ years of progressive software engineering leadership, including 3+ years leading at the Director level or above across multiple teams or technology domains 

• Experience shaping engineering strategy and organizational design, developing leaders, and building accountable, collaborative teams across geographically distributed, globally operating organizations 

• Demonstrated AI literacy and hands-on expertise using AI in your own engineering and leadership work, including critical evaluation of outputs and limitations and concrete improvements in how you work 

• Genuine curiosity about AI and continuous learning through experimentation, with sound judgment about where AI helps, its limitations, and readiness for broader adoption 

• Experience enabling others to use AI through coaching, training, and reusable practices, developing Directors and technical leaders who can guide adoption and sustain measurable improvements 

• Strong technical judgment across digital commerce, enterprise applications, and their integrations, with experience connecting architecture and modernization choices to business outcomes 

• A record of improving delivery predictability and software quality while sustaining the reliability, performance, and security of business-critical systems in a retail, eCommerce, or similarly high-availability consumer-facing environment. Experience with peak-season operations and seasonal demand spikes is a strong differentiator 

• Experience with modern software development practices, automation-first testing, CI/CD, observability, and incident management, with the ability to guide technical leaders and assess operational risk 

• Experience managing engineering budgets, workforce and capacity plans, technology investments, and vendor relationships, with sound financial and commercial judgment 

• Strong communication, influencing, and negotiation skills. Ability to work with Product and business leaders, make tradeoffs explicit, and develop shared accountability for results 

About Us: Balsam Brands is a global, omnichannel retailer with roots in holiday and home décor. We strive for excellence in everything we do and present a unique opportunity for those seeking to have a meaningful impact in a people-first company that values relationship building, authenticity, and doing the right thing. We have steadily growing teams in Boise, the Bay Area, Dublin, the Philippines, Canada, and Mexico.

The company's mission is to create joy together. We empower our team and partners to love what they do, provide products and experiences that inspire meaningful moments with family and friends, and give back to our families and communities in impactful ways. When you join Balsam Brands, you'll find a culture of caring people doing challenging work and building a welcoming workplace. 

• Check out our flagship brand, Balsam Hill: www.balsamhill.com  

• Balsam Brands in Forbes: https://bit.ly/balsambrandsforbes2023 

• Balsam Brands on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/balsam-brands/ 
• Glassdoor: https://bit.ly/balsambrands-glassdoor 

At Balsam Brands, we strive to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package. For permanent, full-time team members, our current package includes: 

• Competitive compensation, including a cash-based incentive plan; salary is reviewed yearly and may be adjusted as part of the normal compensation review process 

• Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, with 100% of monthly premiums covered for team members, and 85%+ employer-paid premiums for other coverage tiers that include dependents 

• Up to $2,000 annual funding toward HSA accounts  

• Medical, transit, dependent care FSA  

• Infertility coverage offered on all medical plans 

• Generous parental leave program and flexible return options 

• Company-paid life and AD&D insurance 

• Company-paid short and long-term disability insurance 

• 401(k) with dollar-for-dollar company match up to $4,000 per calendar year 

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and other mental health and wellness perks 

• Paid holidays, annual shutdown week, PTO, and volunteer time-off (VTO) packages 

• Paid 5-week sabbatical leave after 10 years of employment 

• Annual continuous learning benefit up to $1,000 per person, per fiscal year 

• Up to $300 flexible reimbursement to support setup of new team member's work-from-home environment 

• Generous team member merchandise discount 

• Valuable extras: identity theft protection, subsidized parking, monthly wellness, pet insurance, accident & critical illness insurance 

The base pay range for this position is: $240,000 to $302,000. Please note that placement within the posted salary range is based on several factors, including geographic location, experience, skills, alignment with role requirements and other job-related factors. It is uncommon for offers to be made at the top of the range, as this typically reflects a candidate who exceeds all role requirements and brings significant, directly applicable experience. We benchmark our pay ranges against current external data sources and regularly review compensation for our team members. Balsam Brands is committed to providing our team members with an internally fair, externally competitive, and fiscally prudent total compensation package administered in a simple and consistent manner. 

At Balsam Brands, we strive to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive team to fulfill our purpose to create joy together. Balsam Brands is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy or caregiver status, veteran status, or any other legally protected status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. 

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