For over 25 years, Native Instruments has been at the forefront of sonic innovation. Guided by our mission to inspire and enable creators to express themselves, we develop integrated audio hardware and software solutions for musicians, producers, engineers, and DJs of all genres and levels of experience.

About The Team

Native Instruments is seeking an experienced and visionary VP of Engineering to lead the development of our industry-leading products like Kontakt, Maschine, Traktor, and our extensive range of virtual instruments, synths, and creative effects.

In this central leadership role, you will be responsible for the overall technical strategy, execution, and delivery of our iconic software and hardware. You will report directly to the Chief Product and Technology Officer and will lead a talented and diverse team of engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, innovation, cross-functional collaboration, and continuous improvement.

This is a fantastic opportunity for a proven engineering leader to have a significant impact on the future of music creation and performance, shaping the technology that empowers countless artists globally, and accelerates business growth

Your Contribution

Strategic & Technical Leadership

• Define and execute an engineering strategy thats aligned with company objectives and product vision.
• Track and apply new technologies - especially AI - for both internal efficiency and customer benefit, ensuring our products remain at the forefront of audio technology.
• Make hard decisions to modernise, simplify, and rationalize our technology estate.
• Hold teams accountable for building high-quality, high-performance products at scale.

Organizational Leadership

• Lead, inspire, and develop a multi-disciplinary team of engineering managers, software engineers, and QA professionals.
• Build an engineering culture grounded in accountability, collaboration, and a growth mindset.
• Hire and retain world-class technical talent. Proactively address underperformance.
• Manage budgets responsibly, balancing short term execution needs with long-term organisational health.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Work collaboratively with Product, Product Design, Sound Design, Marketing, and other stakeholders to align on roadmaps, priorities, and delivery timelines.
• Be an active partner to your peers the Extended Leadership Team solving problems and enabling innovation across not only the Product Creation organisation, but also Marketing, Sales, IT, Finance and others.

Delivery

• Own the timely delivery and quality of new releases and features across multiple product lines and platforms.
• Promote agile practices including regular delivery of working software, and iterative development.
• Drive improvements in engineering velocity through adoption of processes and tools including AI, test automation, observability, and codebase modernisation.
• Set and monitor key metrics for performance, delivery, reliability, and team health.
• Manage the timely delivery and quality of 3rd party developers who build for our platforms, or who integrate our technology.

Our Ideal Candidate

Domain Expertise:

• Desktop Software Development : Building, shipping, and maintaining C++ applications for Windows and macOS.
• Audio/Music: Familiarity with music creation tools, digital audio technology, and realtime systems.
• DSP & Realtime Systems : Experience delivering performant, low-latency systems ideally in audio processing, plugin development, or interactive creative tools.
• Web/Cloud Integration : Familiarity with hosted services powering modern creative tools, including identity and login services, recommendation and personalization systems, analytics and instrumentation, A/B testing, feature flagging, and progressive rollout infrastructure.
• AI-powered Features : Demonstrated experience integrating AI/ML into real-world user-facing products e.g. intelligent recommendations to generative tools, or assistive workflows.

Leadership Experience:

• 10+ years leading multi-product software engineering teams at VP or senior director level, ideally in a product-led technology company.
• Demonstrated success managing teams of 50+ engineers across multiple functional disciplines.
• Strong technical foundation in software engineering youve shipped complex products developed by multiple teams and understand the iron triangle tradeoffs deeply.
• Experience growing and scaling engineering teams, systems, and practices in high-growth or transformation contexts.
• Track record of building inclusive, high-performing cultures where people feel they can do the best work of their careers.
• Experience collaborating closely with Product, Design and Marketing to deliver cohesive, customer-centric solutions.
• Remote First: We offer a range of options that allow you to work in a way that suits your lifestyle, either at one of our workspaces, a hybrid arrangement, or fully remote.
• Shared workspace in London: Landmark Spaces
• Workation: Work remotely anywhere in the world for up to 4 weeks per year
• Flexible work model from one of our entity locations
• Trust-based working hours
• Holidays: 25 days paid holiday per year which increases with tenure
• Healthcare: Public health care with NHS supplemented with Simply Health. This involves contributions for dental and optical healthcare, for example
• Pension: Employees can choose an auto enrolment scheme or can bring their own SIPP with them
• Free software downloads and reduced prices on hardware
• Employee Assistance Program for your well-being