[Wattpad] Head of Engineering

The role

Lead and develop the engineering leadership team across architecture, client engineering, platform, and data engineering. Shape technical direction and strengthen data engineering, delivery practices, and cross-functional partnership.

What you will do

• Lead and develop the engineering leadership team across architecture, client engineering, platform, and data engineering.
• Strengthen engineering delivery, planning, estimation, and technical roadmapping.
• Shape the technical direction of Wattpad alongside senior technical leaders.
• Strengthen Data Engineering capabilities to support personalization, content intelligence, experimentation, and AI.
• Help teams make timely technical decisions and tradeoffs between speed, scalability, complexity, and maintainability.
• Build an engineering culture of proactive problem solving, ownership, and urgency.
• Develop engineering leaders who can operate with increasing autonomy.
• Evolve engineering operating practices across clarity, communication, and incident response.
• Deepen partnership between Engineering, Product, Design, Data, Content, and Trust & Safety.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, curiosity, accountability, and continuous learning.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams and senior engineering leaders.
• Experience leading a multi-team engineering organization across areas, engineering, infrastructure, and data.
• Strong technical depth and architectural judgment.
• Experience leading or partnering closely with Data Engineering, with a strong understanding of modern data platforms, pipelines, and analytics infrastructure.
• Demonstrated experience improving engineering operating practices, including planning, estimation, technical roadmapping, delivery, ownership, and incident response.
• Strong people leadership and coaching skills, with experience developing engineering managers and senior technical leaders.
• Proven ability to make sound decisions in ambiguous environments and move teams from problem identification to resolution.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills, partnering with Product, Design, Data, and other business functions.
• Experience leading through organizational or technical change while maintaining team engagement and delivery.
• No specific degree, license, or certification is required. Equivalent practical experience is valued.

Nice to have

• Strong technical judgment and the ability to challenge assumptions.
• A track record of creating engineering rigor through planning, decision making, and accountability without unnecessary process.
• A proactive problem-solving mindset.
• Strong leadership leverage, with success developing engineering managers and senior technical leaders.
• Experience building collaborative engineering cultures that operate as integrated partners with the broader business.

Benefits

• Career development and mentorship.
• Top industry health benefits, including vision and dental.
• Annual health and wellness account.
• RRSP contributions (Canada), 401K contributions (USA).
• Generous vacation and maternity/parental leave top-up program.
• Corporate discount for gym memberships for you and your family.
• Work from almost anywhere in the world for part of the year.
• Winter break shutdown.

Before you apply

• Applicants must be authorized to work in Canada (excluding Quebec) as a precondition of employment.
• Wattpad cannot sponsor applicants for work permits.
• All interviews are conducted remotely using third-party video tools such as Google Meet and Zoom.
• Accommodations are available on request for all parts of the selection process.

About the company

Wattpad is a leading global webnovel platform and part of WEBTOON Entertainment's IP and Creator Ecosystem, with approximately 155 million monthly active users. Its vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories.