VP of Engineering

About Ornn Ornn is building the financial infrastructure for AI compute. Our price indices are live on Bloomberg Terminal. We structure and trade compute hedging instruments. And we're now building a platform that brings exchange-grade mechanics like order management, matching, scheduling, and settlement to how compute capacity gets reserved and allocated. We're a lean team in New York, backed by leading venture and strategic investors.
About the Role This role will lead engineering at Ornn and own the systems the whole business runs on. Our platform handles real capacity commitments backed by real contracts, and our indices are used to price and hedge them, so the bar is closer to a trading system than a typical SaaS product. A bug here is a financial event, not just an incident ticket.
Day to day, the role splits between setting technical direction across Ornn Data, Ornn Exchange and Ornn Compute, building and leading the engineering team, and staying close enough to the code to make good calls on architecture, reliability and tradeoffs. The position works directly with the founders, and with product, GTM and markets, because what we build has to match what we sell and what our counterparties rely on.
What You'll Do
- Own the technical strategy and architecture across our data, exchange and compute platforms, and make the calls on what we build, buy and defer.
- Build the engineering team: hire senior engineers, set the bar, and grow a small group into a high-performing org without losing speed.
- Make reliability and correctness a feature. Set the standards for testing, code review, observability, incident response and security.
- Run engineering execution: planning, priorities and delivery, so the team ships on the timelines our customers and partners depend on.
- Partner with the founders, product and markets teams to turn new financial products and customer needs into a clear technical roadmap.

What We're Looking For
Requirements
- 5+ years building production software, including 2+ years leading engineering teams.
- A track record of scaling an engineering team and platform at an early-stage, high-growth company.
- Deep experience with systems where correctness and uptime matter, such as trading, payments, exchanges or core infrastructure.
- Strong technical depth in backend and distributed systems.
- Excellent judgment on architecture and tradeoffs, and the ability to explain them clearly to engineers and non-engineers alike.
- An operator mentality and high agency. You are comfortable in a lean team where the leader still builds.

Nice-to-Haves
- Experience at a trading firm, exchange, market data provider, fintech or crypto company.
- Familiarity with GPU compute, cloud infrastructure or datacenter operations.
- Rust experience, especially for performance-critical systems.
- Experience with security and compliance programs such as SOC 2, or with regulated financial products.

Why This Role Matters Everything Ornn offers rests on the platform working. Our indices, the hedging products built on them and the marketplace that allocates real capacity all assume a reliable, correct system underneath. This role will decide how that system gets built and who builds it, and the decisions made in the next year will shape what Ornn can become.
Compensation and Benefits Benefits include competitive salary, meaningful equity, health coverage, free meals, and additional benefits. This is a leadership role with significant strategic impact and equity upside.
Equal Opportunity Statement Ornn is committed to building a diverse team. We evaluate candidates based on their ability to do the work, not on pedigree or background. We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences.
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