Honeycomb Is Hiring a New VP of Engineering

No, we don't usually post about job openings here. We've never done it before. But we suspect the person we want to hire probably isn't looking for a job right now, and probably is paying attention to our blog, or is known by someone who does.

Emily Nakashima, storied builder of Honeycomb Engineering, is moving into an operational role. She has led engineering for over nine years, going from our first frontend developer hire to our first manager, director, first VP, and SVP. It's been a great run. But as Emily says, “change is good sometimes.” And we're all pretty excited about this next step.

We are looking for someone to be a partner to our SVP Product, Graham Siener, in leading R&D, as well as a full member of the executive team. I am attaching the full job description below, but here are the three bullets I'd use to sum it up:

• A partner to product, a good leader and storyteller. You need to be able to lead decisively and bring people along, setting goals and measuring outcomes.
• Risk tolerance high enough for pre-PMF offerings. The AI shift has brought changing expectations and norms to all software teams. The new SaaS is not the old SaaS.
• AI-forward, and hands on in the last 12 months. You can't lead with conviction in the AI era unless you know what it feels like to ship software this way.

These needs are unequivocal. We also strongly prefer someone who has led a much larger org (>100s), owned all of engineering, and been a member of the exec team, but some tradeoffs are inevitable here. We are a remote-first team in the developer tools space with an agentic roadmap, so those things matter to us too.

We also know unicorns aren't real. 😉 If you're interested in the role and you don't quite fit the criteria, go ahead and apply here—we'll take a look and get back to you! And please feel free to forward to anyone you think might love this role. We suspect the person we want to hire may not be looking for a job, so we appreciate your help. You can apply here.

VP Engineering at Honeycomb

Remote-first · ~300 people, 85 in engineering · Reports to our CEO

AI is changing how software gets built, shipped, and run. It is increasing the need for sense-making of production software systems. We believe AI will reshape observability itself. Honeycomb created this category, and we want our next engineering leader to help us lead its reinvention.

The role

You'll join the executive team as a full partner in setting strategy. Our exec team acts as a first team, working closely together to revise our strategy as the world changes. Right now, it is changing often! You'll bring a wealth of experience and imagination around what's possible to help sharpen our bets and find the right path forward. Then you'll shape a strong engineering org to deliver on these decisions.

What you'll do

• Shape the strategy. Form your own view of where the product, technology and market are heading. Bring it to your closest partners: product, the founders, and the wider exec team. Some of our bets will need sharpening, and some new ones will need making.
• Build alignment at the top. We believe our strength as a company depends on the strength of our exec team. We want you to help make us better. You'll work closely with product and the CEO, challenging and being challenged in return, until we are all committed to a shared direction.
• Help the whole org to make sense of fast change. When the ground moves quickly, people need help understanding what is changing and why. Burnout is high in our industry, and we want to keep our people motivated, excited to come to work, and with their full creativity and energy. You'll explain engineering's direction clearly and repeatedly, to engineers, managers, the exec team, and the rest of the company. We're remote-first, so much of this happens in writing and in presentations.
• Lead a high-performing team into what's next. We have strong managers, directors, and ICs. You'll aim that talent at our biggest opportunities and adjust the org's structure, goals, and ways of working to be continually more effective. You'll do this without losing what makes the team great.
• Lead from technical credibility. You can't lead with conviction in the era of AI without first hand understanding of the landslide of change. Which means you should have built software and shipped in the past 12 months, hands on, using AI.

You might be a fit if:

• You've led engineering through large scale changes in direction, not just growth.
• You've shipped software with AI tools yourself within the last 12 months.
• You have a special talent for collaboration and improving executive teams.
• You're as interested in shaping strategy as in executing it.
• You've worked at a larger company, and know what breaks as companies scale, but can tolerate risk more like an early stage startup.
• You're comfortable with uncertainty, rapid change, and shaping new bets towards product-market fit.
• You've led distributed teams and communicate well in writing and in person.
• You care about developer tools and have good taste in them. (Having used Honeycomb is not a requirement, but it is a bonus!)
• You share our values.

Worth reading: How we do business at Honeycomb in the AI era, our AI norms and values, and why engineering is all in on AI.

If you match some of this but not all of it, please apply anyway. We'd rather talk to a strong candidate who doubts themselves than miss them.

If this sounds exactly like someone you know, please pass it along.