VP of Engineering, Recipient Experience

Today, through BHN’s single global platform, businesses of all kinds can tap into the world’s largest network of branded payment solutions. BHN helps businesses grow revenue, increase loyalty, motivate and reward their teams, disburse funds and engage consumers. Branded payment solutions include the issuance and distribution of gift cards, egifts, corporate payouts and rewards, along with the technology to deliver these products in seamless, integrated ways. BHN’s network spans the globe with more than 400,000 consumer touchpoints. Learn more at BHN.com.

As the VP of Engineering – Recipient Experience, you will lead the development of industry-leading consumer-facing technologies that drive user engagement, enhance usability, and ensure robust security. You'll ensure our platforms, mobile apps, and digital experiences deliver scalable, highly available, and frictionless consumer journeys. Collaborating closely with product, design, and business leaders, you'll craft personalized customer experiences while maintaining engineering excellence and operational efficiency.

This role is ideally suited for a seasoned technology leader experienced in consumer fintech, digital wallets, mobile applications, and highly scalable distributed systems.

You Will Love This Job If...

• You thrive on building high-performing teams. You scale engineering organizations sustainably, fostering innovation, accountability, and psychological safety.
• You balance technical excellence with business impact. Pragmatism guides your decisions, ensuring alignment between engineering outcomes and strategic objectives.
• You embrace iteration and experimentation. You see testing and fast feedback loops as essential pathways to product excellence.
• You believe in product-led growth. You understand great engineering drives products that deliver consumer value and business growth.
• You excel at cross-functional collaboration. You proactively engage with Product, Design, Marketing, and Business teams to create exceptional consumer experiences.
• You leverage network effects. You're energized by scaling consumer networks, connecting customers to brands they love.
• You’re passionate about consumer-facing innovation. You have extensive experience developing intuitive digital wallets, mobile apps, fintech solutions, and other consumer technologies.
• You understand monetizing large consumer audiences. You have successfully built and managed customer data platforms, audience targeting systems, and marketing technology.
• You lead by example. Your leadership combines strategic vision with hands-on guidance, setting a high standard for engineering culture, integrity, and execution.

Engineering Leadership & Strategy

• Define and execute the technical vision for consumer-facing platforms, aligning closely with strategic business goals.
• Oversee the creation of scalable, reliable, secure technology solutions spanning mobile, web, and digital payments.
• Partner strategically with Product and Design executives to drive user-centric innovation and seamless product deployments.
• Establish and uphold rigorous engineering practices in software development, QA, DevOps, and infrastructure to maintain high reliability, security, and performance.

Consumer-Focused Product Development

• Lead the engineering of intuitive, accessible, and engaging mobile and web experiences optimized for user acquisition, retention, and conversion.
• Ensure smooth, secure integration with major digital wallet platforms (Apple Pay, Google Pay, emerging fintech providers).
• Champion a culture of experimentation, leveraging A/B testing, rapid prototyping, and analytics-driven development.
• Oversee API/SDK strategies enabling frictionless third-party integrations and strategic partnerships.

Marketing and Consumer Engagement Platforms

• Develop technology platforms enabling marketers to attract, retain, and deeply engage customers through targeted campaigns and personalized communications.
• Oversee the creation of large-scale consumer data platforms, sophisticated audience segmentation, and attribution models.
• Apply modern machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to rapidly develop and test hypotheses, driving consumer insights.

People & Organizational Development

• Attract, mentor, and retain exceptional engineering talent across software, infrastructure, data science, and security domains.
• Scale and manage global engineering teams, promoting collaboration, autonomy, innovation, and accountability.
• Cultivate a continuous learning environment rooted in agile practices, rapid experimentation, and robust feedback loops to optimize productivity and team growth.
• Foster a psychologically safe, inclusive, and diverse engineering culture that encourages creative problem-solving and challenges conventional thinking.

Essential Experience & Skills

• Minimum 15 years in engineering leadership roles, with at least 5 years as a VP, Director, or equivalent in high-growth technology organizations.
• Extensive experience developing consumer fintech solutions, mobile applications, digital wallets, or high-scale consumer-facing platforms.
• Demonstrated success integrating with major digital payment networks (Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.).
• Expertise in cloud-native architectures, microservices, scalable APIs, and real-time data processing platforms.
• Proven track record applying AI/ML for consumer personalization, fraud detection, or customer analytics.
• Experience building marketing or consumer-engagement platforms, including audience targeting and customer data platforms (CDPs).
• Strong understanding of security, regulatory compliance, and data privacy standards (GDPR, CCPA, PCI DSS, etc.).
• Exceptional business acumen and demonstrated capability aligning engineering execution with corporate strategy.
• Proven experience managing distributed, global engineering teams in dynamic, fast-paced environments.
• Outstanding communication, stakeholder management, and executive influence skills.

Salary Range for California Residents Only: $247,840.00 to $347,000.00
Salary Range for Illinois Residents Only: $202,850.00 to $284,000.00

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, Blackhawk Network offers benefits including 401k with employer match, medical, dental, vision, 12 paid holidays throughout the year 2025, sick pay accrual according to state law, parental leave, life insurance, disability insurance, accident and illness insurance, health and dependent care flexible spending accounts, wellness benefits, and flexible time off for all full-time employees.