Who We AreUnitedMasters is building a marketplace that connects artists, brands and fans - empowering artists to earn and grow. UnitedMasters has taken the bold step of building a music distribution service that, radically, puts artists first - disrupting the legacy music business by letting up-and-coming artists distribute their music directly to fans through streaming services while maintaining ownership of their master recording rights and up to 100% of royalties. Through the combination of UnitedMasters’ music distribution platform and its deep ties to brands, UnitedMasters enables independent artists and change-makers to grow and earn unlike any other platform.
The UnitedMasters team is made up of musicians, marketers, engineers, and storytellers with backgrounds from YouTube, SoundCloud, Pandora, Facebook, Uber, Dropbox, Complex, VICE, and more. We work hand in hand with the award-winning creative teams that forge those innovative partnerships at Translation (our in-house creative advertising agency).
What's The RoleUnitedMasters is seeking a VP of Engineering to lead and scale our engineering organization across backend, mobile (iOS/Android), web, data, QA, DevOps. This leader will drive the architectural vision, delivery excellence, and technical culture behind our consumer subscription products and our growing B2B indie label business.
A core mandate of this role is leveraging AI to enhance both customer experience and engineering productivity. You will champion AI-driven personalization, artist tools, recommendations, and automation—while also deploying AI-enabled development tooling, test automation, and ML-driven operations to improve engineering velocity and quality. This role is ideal for a systems-level thinker, an inspiring people leader, and an operator who thrives in a fast-moving, culture-driven environment.
This role is based in San Francisco with four days in-office and one day remote.
What You'll DoTechnical Leadership, AI Innovation & Architecture
- Define the multi-year technical and AI strategy across the UnitedMasters product ecosystem.
- Build AI-powered customer-facing capabilities (e.g., artist insights, content recommendations, automated marketing, distribution optimization).
- Introduce AI/ML for internal engineering productivity (e.g., code generation, automated testing, anomaly detection, observability insights, ops automation).
- Drive architectural modernization and scale initiatives across our marketplace, mobile apps, analytics pipelines, and label services.
- Ensure systems are reliable, performant, secure, and built for global scale.
Organizational Leadership & Global Team Management
- Lead, mentor, and grow a 41-person engineering organization, including managers, and senior ICs.
- Establish engineering competencies, performance systems, and technical excellence standards.
Execution, Delivery & Productivity
- Set up modern SDLC practices with strong CI/CD, automated testing, and AI-enabled developer tools.
- Drive predictable execution and high-quality delivery across all engineering pods.
- Partner with Product and Design leadership on prioritization, planning, and resource allocation.
- Own engineering commitments and ensure exceptional communication around timelines, risks, and dependencies.
Cross-Functional Partnership
- Collaborate closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Revenue, Marketing, and Artist Relations teams.
- Translate business goals into clear, actionable technical plans.
- Improve expectations-setting and visibility with executive stakeholders.
Innovation & Velocity
- Create an environment where teams experiment and ship quickly, backed by strong measurement and rapid iteration.
- Introduce emerging technologies—especially AI/ML, automation, and mobile innovation—to drive continuous improvement.
- Use data and machine learning to power artist discovery, monetization tools, predictive insights, and sync opportunities.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Strong project management skills and ability to prioritize work to successfully balance several work streams at a time
- Ability to pay meticulous attention to detail and possess a deeply pro-active, hands-on mentality
- Possess deep appreciation and sensitivity towards people, culture, and values
- Ability to execute on priorities with a strong sense of urgency, ownership and accountability
- Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with tact, diplomacy, and discretion
- Proactive collaborator among various stakeholders and peers
- Personable, smart, passionate, and optimistic.
Minimum Qualifications- 12+ years engineering experience with 5+ years leading orgs of 25+ engineers, including managers and senior ICs.
- Proven success as a senior engineering leader (Director/Sr. Director/VP) at a scaled B2C, marketplace, or subscription-driven technology company.
- Strong technical background with the ability to dive deep into systems architecture, data modeling, mobile performance, and platform-scale challenges.Demonstrated experience deploying AI/ML in both customer-facing features and internal engineering workflows.
- Hands-on leadership managing distributed teams.
- Track record of improving engineering velocity and developer experience through tooling, process, and automation.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience with large-scale content distribution, media ingestion pipelines, payments, subscription systems, or rights management.
- Familiarity with Python/Django, JavaScript/TypeScript, Kubernetes, event-driven architecture, or modern mobile frameworks.
- Strong understanding of data science, ML infrastructure, and experimentation platforms.
- Background in creator economy, digital media, or marketplace ecosystems.
About UnitedMasters, Inc.UnitedMasters Inc. represents the creative solutions company, Translation, and the leading software and services platform for independent creators, UnitedMasters. UnitedMasters enables ownership, exposure, and new paths for financial return for independent creators, while Translation helps brands leverage the power of contemporary culture to achieve transformational growth. Combined, UnitedMasters, Inc. is the world’s leading marketplace for cultural capital, connecting independent artists and brands to realize a future in which all creators own their future. Backed by Alphabet, Andreessen Horowitz, and Apple, UnitedMasters, Inc. is reimagining how brands and artists come together to tell their stories, build profitable growth, and push culture forward.
Salary Hiring Range: $275,000 - $310,000
Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry, and are one part of many compensation, benefits and other reward opportunities we provide (e.g. bonus, stock options, 401(k) match, etc.)
Individual pay rate decisions are based on a number of factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company. We expect the majority of the candidates who are offered roles at our company to fall healthily throughout the range based on these factors.
The range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however we are often open to a wide variety of profiles, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted. If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated with you as a candidate.
The salary range above is for the NY/CA. As a company, we have a location based strategy, which means the salary range could be lower or higher than this if the role is hired in another location.
