Le métier de VP Engineering est en plein essor, notamment depuis le développement des entreprises informatiques. Travaillant en collaboration avec le CTO (Chief Technical Officer) de la société, il a pour rôle principal la définition et le déploiement de logiciels informatiques, software ou hardware, à l’aide d’une roadmap. Dans cette fiche-métier, apprenez-en plus sur ce métier, notamment sur les missions quotidiennes ainsi que les qualifications requises pour occuper le poste, au côté du CTO.
Un VP Engineering a pour rôle le management d’une équipe tech afin de mener à bien le lancement et le suivi d’une roadmap, que ce soit pour un software ou un hardware. En d’autres termes, il est considéré comme un vrai manager et doit posséder des qualifications dans ce domaine, mais aussi celui de la programmation afin de piloter son projet avec succès.
Cependant, attention à ne pas confondre la profession de VP Engineering avec celui de CTO. En effet, un VP Engineering est plus opérationnel qu’un CTO puisqu’il est en charge du management de ses équipes.
Si vous avez des appétences pour l’univers de la programmation web ainsi que pour le management, ce job est peut-être votre vocation !
Le rôle d’un vice-président de l’ingénierie se réalise principalement dans l’opérationnel. Il est chargé de diriger intégralement la mise en œuvre des systèmes web d’une société. Cela comprend : la vision globale de la stratégie, la conception, la mise en œuvre ainsi que le suivi. Pour cela, il doit manager une équipe tech multidisciplinaire, composée d’une multitude d’autres métiers comme Software Engineer ou encore Data Engineer.
Il tient un rôle crucial dans une entreprise puisque c’est lui-même qui analyse les besoins d’un projet informatique, afin de mettre les actions en place pour son déploiement et son optimisation dans le cadre d’un suivi.
En plus de piloter un projet de A à Z, il est chargé de réaliser une veille concurrentielle et technologique afin de détecter toutes les nouvelles technologies et tendances qui émergent sur son domaine.
Afin de mener à bien sa fonction principale : le lancement et le déploiement de logiciels informatiques, il doit réaliser plusieurs tâches au quotidien.
Voici les différentes tâches de cet emploi :
Au quotidien, le vice-président en ingénierie doit faire preuve de polyvalence pour réussir à jongler entre toutes ses tâches. De plus, il doit faire preuve d’une grande adaptabilité pour manager sa team. En effet, chaque collaborateur est différent et ne bénéficie donc pas du même type de management.
Il est possible pour un VP Engineering de travailler directement au sein d’une entreprise, ou alors d’être embauché en tant que freelance. Plusieurs facteurs ont un impact sur cette rémunération salariale en France : l’expérience et la localisation.
Pour un individu sénior exerçant à Paris, son salaire sera compris entre 60 000 et 80 000 euros à l’année, soit 5 000 à 6 666 euros mensuellement. Tandis qu’un individu sénior exerçant en province touchera une rémunération salariale comprise entre 50 000 et 65 000 euros à l’année, soit une rémunération allant de 4 166 à 5 416 euros par mois.
Dans la même lignée, une personne confirmée dans ce domaine pourra espérer une rémunération salariale supérieure à 80 000 euros l’année, si elle exerce ses fonctions à Paris. En province, la rémunération sera au-delà des 65 000 euros à l’année.
Si vous désirez vous lancer en freelance, sachez que le tarif journalier moyen fluctue énormément. Cependant, celui que l’on retrouve sur les plateformes de freelanceest d’environ 650 euros.
En raison de sa forte importance au sein d’une entreprise, le VP Engineering doit être doté d’une multitude de qualifications, tant au niveau technique que comportementale.
Pour mener à bien ses tâches quotidiennes, il est alors primordial de connaître et de maîtriser divers outils technologiques.
La technologie au cœur de cet emploi est sans aucun doute la programmation et les logiciels associés. Une maîtrise des différents langages de programmation, comme Python ou Java, est primordial afin de formuler et de produire des algorithmes pour les programmes informatiques.
Étant manageur, il est primordial de lier ses différents collaborateurs. Pour cela, il est possible d’utiliser des logiciels de messagerie pour faciliter et fluidifier la communication entre eux. Parmi les logiciels existants, les plus utilisés sont Discord et Slack.
Dans la même lignée, il est possible de s’équiper de logiciels qui facilitent le pilotage des différents projets. Dans le domaine information, c’est le logiciel GitHub qui est fréquemment sollicité.
En France, quelques professions sont similaires à ce poste, voici lesquelles :
Strategic innovation and defining new services and solutions business for INSIDE.
Anti-counterfeiting solutioning: drafted the business requirements and System requirements specifications.
Personalisation as a Service : drafted the overall security architecture and flow to ensure security scalability.
Trusted executing environments (hardware assisted and embedded software security): defined roadmap for migration for the company to move away from SoC to a pure embedded security ompany.
Secure Element payment OS : drafted a technical specification for a US payment company interested in having it’s own proprietary OS. Core team member in acquisition of embedded security solution team (ESS) from Apple: (i)AUTHENTEC Embedded Security Solutions business unit from APPLE in 2012. Defined product synergy roadmap from the new acquisition (VPN, SSL, Secure Element)
Build-up and manage the R&D organization (annual budget : 30M USD). Grew the R&D organization
from 25 people in 2007 to over 140 people located in 6 international sites.
Managed fabless semi-conductor design, secure embedded software developm
ent, mobile device software development, security provisioning services and security certification. Developed and deliver industry award winning products ( MicroPass payment card, MicroRead NFC chip, Secure Element for mobile NFC, OpenNFC software, Persona
lization as a Service). Implement process and procedures for security certifications (CC, EMVCo).
Core team member in major acquisition of fabless development : (i)ATMEL Secure Microcontroller Systems business unit from ATMEL in 2010.
Bootstraped a structured product development methodology and process. Put in place a lean and hybrid agile methodology with continuous integration between the embedded software and the SoC.
Put in place and deployed R&D management tools which included: a centralized PMO, an enterprise
wide project managementtool, a centralized requirements management tool (Jama),a centralized issue management (Jira), an internal wiki (Confluence) and centralized document management
tool Migrate the configuration management tool from svn to git. Worked with IT to put in place a security policy and ensure ensure process security extensively to achieve continuous integration and
delivery.
Achieved yearly ISO 9001 and ISO 27000 certifications.
Put in place a development costs reduction program through the French national and European R&D
funding programs saving the company 6M USD annually.
Wide Technology base : SoC development base (Verilog) and Cadence development suite. Embeded security in cand java, NFC open source stack developed in c and ported to Android and Blackberry platforms. Mobile applications development on Android. Personalisation software in c with integration to HSMs.
Technology base :Embeded security in c, java and c#. Tight integration to CISCO , NFC open source stack developed in c and ported to Android and Blackberry platforms. Mobile applications development on Android. Personalisation software in c with integration to HSMs.
Worked in start-up mode with a lean team from within the main organization to accelerate new product introduction within an 18 months cycle. Sucessfully launched the authentication token product business at Gemplus.The work involved included
Managing core technical team (6 engineers) and interface to buisness lines.
Managing the overall product definition and development activities, provide product vision and
strategy, technical marketing, project management and business development
Wrote majority of functional and technical specifications and also contribute to writing the test
software.
Putin place processes (Agile)and methodology (continuous integration) adapted to the mission
to transfer the successful finished products to existing business units.
The objective was to establish a global professional services offering for North and South America
catering to the ebusiness, mobile commerce, banking and loyalty smart card markets.
▪Set-up and ran the software development organization in Montreal within a 3 months period of 24
engineers and integrators.
▪Activities included defining the structure and organization, define job descriptions, hiring , training
and building a project pipe-line. Established best-practices processes and methodology.
▪Delivered on-time and within budget the major smart card solutions. VISA Smart Access, First
USA Bank, Providian Bank, French La-Poste,Canadian Post Corporation Secure Channel Project,
Target Loyalty Project and Total System Card Management Systems (with IBM).
▪Within 2 years, the group became a center of expertise for the company in smart card application
integration (card OS, smart card applets, client software integration, card management systems)
In charge of organizing and managing the overall product life cycle development for the Mobile
Telecommunications market. Manage the research development organization in Europe, Americas and
Asia of which the core team of about 60 engineers were based in France.
▪Set-up expert development groups in :(i)Over the Air SIM card management–was also overall rchitect for 2nd generation OTA platform. (ii)Smart card Operating Systems –native and Javacard (Developed the first GSM Java Card OS)
▪Establish Processes and methodology to improve requirements definition,development and
testing, deployment and support of the products.
▪Technical due diligence leading to acquisition of Softcard UK for accelerate the development of
Genplus Card Management System product
My own company specializing in high-tech security consultancy services. Recent projects
System specification for an anti-counterfeiting solution for very high value items (wine, luxury goods)
Technical due diligence for an M&A project..Area of expertise : payment and mobile payment with
focus on EMV, Tokenisation, HCEm NFC and embedded security.
Connected car RFQ –wrote technical response as a team member to a security laboratory.
System specification for a dematerialized logistic access control system
World class mobile media company providing B2B and B2C digital entertainment products and services. Major clients include Vodafone (Germany, Spain, Italy, Egypt), O2 , Swisscom, MTN Ghana, Vodacom South Africa and other telcos in Europe, MiddleEast and Africa. Music Partners include Universal, Warner, Sony.
Operations and management of the R&D(50 engineers internal and external), IT & Operations(12
engineers), Business Intelligence (4) and Product Management (5). Responsibilities included :
Putting in management by objectives, weeklies and monthly reviews. Ensure objectives iterated
down to all personnels.
Puttingin place 360 communication channels for reporting and follow-up.
Ensuring budgets are planned, allocated with weekly review of spent vs budget.
Conduct weekly PMO to review project and product progress.
Review technical progress of projects including ad-hoc participation of project stand-ups
Put in place lean process encompassing product management, development life cycle management
(Agile SCRUM), devops for 24x7 operations and BI reporting and analysis.
Launched 2 new products : one in mobile games and one in mobile music playlist.
Opened new R&D center in Cairo doubling size of internal R&D.
Oversee migration effort from internal hosted server infrastrtutre to a hybrid structure using Azure
as the primary cdn.
Technology base : Java (Spring) for multitenant back end and Javascript (node and HAPI) for middleware and API, solr for indexing and search, sql and mongo for storage . Front end on a case by case basis ranging from Grails (groovy), bespoke php and javascript development. Mobile apps are mobile web, android and ios. Evalutated front end technology for fast prototyping
and testing including meteor, react, phantom and casper.
Start-up in Secure Mobile Know Your Customer and Fraud Management services platform.
Team size : 8 engineers
Manage R&D team from product definition to implementation and delivery
Reviewed overall legacy architecture to address scalability issues. Implementation not carried out as company didn’t have sufficient funds.
Technology base : Grails (groovy and Spring) for main server and Pentahoe for ETL services. Mobi
le application is only on Android.