Qualifications
ResponsibilitiesAs the Vice President of Engineering, you will take on the role of the highest technical authority within the organization, reporting directly to the CEO. You will be responsible for the complete engineering output, overseeing everything from system design and domain architecture to the velocity of delivery, team culture, and the platform decisions that will shape our future.This position calls for a hands-on leader with exceptional technical skills who actively participates in architectural development, elevates engineering quality standards, and constructs an engineering organization poised to lead the SME NeoBank market across Southeast Asia.Product Velocity & QualityEnhance the engineering delivery framework, including sprint cadence, definition of done, code review standards, and release processes.Drive significant improvements in lead time, deployment frequency, and change failure rates (using DORA metrics).Maintain a balance between feature velocity and technical debt with rigorous oversight and transparency.Collaborate with the Product team to jointly manage the technical roadmap, prioritizing build decisions based on architectural dependencies.Architecture & System DesignEstablish and enforce domain boundaries within a microservices architecture, focusing on cross-service messaging patterns, event contracts, and data consistency models.Own data modeling standards and schema governance across services.Lead design reviews for critical architectural choices, including ledger design, transaction state machines, reconciliation, and authorization flows.Develop an architecture review process that is lightweight enough to prevent hindering teams while rigorous enough to avoid costly mistakes.Regulatory, Security & Non-Functional RequirementsOversee the technical implementation of financial regulations.Lead PCI-DSS compliance engineering and scope management initiatives.Encourage adherence to the Azure Well-Architected Framework across all workloads.Define and maintain Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Service Level Objectives (SLOs), including on-call rotation protocols.
About the job
About Us
First Circle is an innovative and rapidly growing neobank, dedicated to serving businesses in the Philippines and soon expanding across Southeast Asia. With a profitable track record and a dynamic engineering team of over 25 professionals, we are focused on building the essential financial infrastructure that thousands of businesses rely on daily.
Our product offerings have evolved from credit solutions to encompass payments, bank accounts, payroll, invoicing, and salary loans. In the coming quarters, we aim to broaden our product suite by introducing corporate credit cards, savings solutions for SMEs and consumers, and more. As we secure regulatory licenses in additional countries, we are also enhancing our platform for international expansion.
About First Circle
First Circle is at the forefront of fintech innovation, providing business-focused banking solutions in Southeast Asia. Our mission is to empower SMEs through cutting-edge financial products that facilitate growth and sustainability.