Head Of Engineering Jobs in California
Head Of Engineering jobs in California represent one of the most active and competitive markets in the country, concentrated in technology, semiconductors, defense, and clean energy across a seniority range from principal engineer stepping into leadership through seasoned VP-level executives. The largest hiring metros are San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego, where companies like Apple, Qualcomm, and Northrop Grumman maintain deep engineering organizations and consistently recruit at this level. The most in-demand specialties are hardware systems, software platform engineering, and AI infrastructure. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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HEAD OF ENGINEERING
ABOUT CHARTMETRIC
Chartmetric is one of the music industry’s leading data analytics platforms, trusted by more than 8,000 customers, including major labels, management firms, and music professionals around the world.
Over the past decade, we’ve built a global data platform spanning streaming, social media, radio, playlists, charts, and audiences. Today, we have more than $11M in annual recurring revenue, a profitable business, and a lean, globally distributed team across the U.S. and Korea.
We’re now entering a new chapter. Alongside our core analytics platform, we’re building AI-native products like Chartmetric Flow that help people ask questions, explore data, and find insights in new ways.
We’re established enough to have meaningful scale and real customers, and small enough that your work can directly shape the company.
THE ROLE
We’re looking for a Head of Engineering to lead and develop the people building Chartmetric—and help them solve the problems that matter.
Working closely with our founder and CEO, Sung Cho (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sungmcho/), and our product and engineering leads, you’ll shape how we hire, organize, and run our engineering team. You’ll be accountable for the team’s performance, the quality of its work, and its ability to deliver.
People leadership is a central part of the role, alongside practical involvement in engineering. When a project stalls, a production issue escalates, or a technical decision needs clarity, you’ll get involved: ask questions, investigate causes, bring the right people together, and help drive a solution.
You won’t need to be the deepest expert in every part of our stack. You will need the judgment and curiosity to understand what’s happening, challenge assumptions, and recognize when a problem needs your direct attention.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Lead and develop engineers. Provide useful feedback, coach people through challenges, build career paths, and address performance issues directly and fairly.
- Own engineering execution. Turn business priorities into realistic plans with product and engineering leads. Make ownership clear, manage dependencies, and take action when delivery slips.
- Help solve engineering problems. Troubleshoot recurring issues, work through difficult tradeoffs, and help teams move forward when the answer is unclear. Stay involved until the problem is resolved.
- Raise quality and reliability. Work with engineers to reduce recurring incidents, improve development and release practices, and balance new features with maintenance and technical debt.
- Build the team thoughtfully. Own hiring priorities, strengthen interviewing and onboarding, and develop engineers who can take on broader responsibility.
- Improve how we work. Make collaboration across teams and time zones more effective. Introduce enough structure to improve focus and accountability while keeping decisions and delivery moving.
- Make AI useful in practice. Help the team adopt AI tools that improve development, testing, troubleshooting, and documentation, and evaluate whether they actually improve results.
- Connect engineering to the business. Communicate progress, risks, and resource needs clearly, and help leadership understand the implications of engineering decisions.
WHO YOU ARE
You’ve successfully managed software engineers and can point to improvements in both individual performance and team results. You’ve hired people, developed talent, handled difficult conversations, and helped teams deliver through challenging periods.
You have a solid grounding in software engineering and experience solving real technical problems. You can follow a system design discussion, investigate why something is going wrong, and help engineers evaluate their options. You’re comfortable getting into technical details when the situation calls for it.
You take ownership when things get difficult. If a release keeps slipping or an issue keeps returning, you work to understand the cause and help fix it. You know when to delegate, when to coach, and when to step in yourself.
You have good product and business judgment. You understand that engineering decisions involve tradeoffs among customer value, speed, quality, cost, and long-term maintainability.
You communicate clearly and build trust across engineering, product, and leadership. Experience working with distributed teams is particularly valuable.
You’re comfortable in a lean company where leaders stay close to the work. Experience with data-intensive products, SaaS platforms, or AI-enabled development is a plus. Music-industry experience is not required.
WHY CHARTMETRIC
You’ll help shape the engineering organization behind a profitable global business, with direct access to the founder and a clear connection between your work and customer outcomes.
Our challenges span large-scale data collection, analytics, product development, and new AI experiences. You’ll have room to improve an established platform while helping the team build what comes next.
COMPENSATION
$200,000–$250,000 base salary, plus equity and benefits.
The actual offer will depend on experience, qualifications, and the scope of responsibility.
HOW TO APPLY
Apply through this posting. We’d love to hear about an engineering team you’ve led, a difficult problem you helped solve, and what improved because of your involvement.
Pay: $190,000.00 - $240,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Flexible schedule
Work Location: Hybrid remote in San Mateo, CA 94401
HEAD OF ENGINEERING
ABOUT CHARTMETRIC
Chartmetric is one of the music industry’s leading data analytics platforms, trusted by more than 8,000 customers, including major labels, management firms, and music professionals around the world.
Over the past decade, we’ve built a global data platform spanning streaming, social media, radio, playlists, charts, and audiences. Today, we have more than $11M in annual recurring revenue, a profitable business, and a lean, globally distributed team across the U.S. and Korea.
We’re now entering a new chapter. Alongside our core analytics platform, we’re building AI-native products like Chartmetric Flow that help people ask questions, explore data, and find insights in new ways.
We’re established enough to have meaningful scale and real customers, and small enough that your work can directly shape the company.
THE ROLE
We’re looking for a Head of Engineering to lead and develop the people building Chartmetric—and help them solve the problems that matter.
Working closely with our founder and CEO, Sung Cho (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sungmcho/), and our product and engineering leads, you’ll shape how we hire, organize, and run our engineering team. You’ll be accountable for the team’s performance, the quality of its work, and its ability to deliver.
People leadership is a central part of the role, alongside practical involvement in engineering. When a project stalls, a production issue escalates, or a technical decision needs clarity, you’ll get involved: ask questions, investigate causes, bring the right people together, and help drive a solution.
You won’t need to be the deepest expert in every part of our stack. You will need the judgment and curiosity to understand what’s happening, challenge assumptions, and recognize when a problem needs your direct attention.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Lead and develop engineers. Provide useful feedback, coach people through challenges, build career paths, and address performance issues directly and fairly.
- Own engineering execution. Turn business priorities into realistic plans with product and engineering leads. Make ownership clear, manage dependencies, and take action when delivery slips.
- Help solve engineering problems. Troubleshoot recurring issues, work through difficult tradeoffs, and help teams move forward when the answer is unclear. Stay involved until the problem is resolved.
- Raise quality and reliability. Work with engineers to reduce recurring incidents, improve development and release practices, and balance new features with maintenance and technical debt.
- Build the team thoughtfully. Own hiring priorities, strengthen interviewing and onboarding, and develop engineers who can take on broader responsibility.
- Improve how we work. Make collaboration across teams and time zones more effective. Introduce enough structure to improve focus and accountability while keeping decisions and delivery moving.
- Make AI useful in practice. Help the team adopt AI tools that improve development, testing, troubleshooting, and documentation, and evaluate whether they actually improve results.
- Connect engineering to the business. Communicate progress, risks, and resource needs clearly, and help leadership understand the implications of engineering decisions.
WHO YOU ARE
You’ve successfully managed software engineers and can point to improvements in both individual performance and team results. You’ve hired people, developed talent, handled difficult conversations, and helped teams deliver through challenging periods.
You have a solid grounding in software engineering and experience solving real technical problems. You can follow a system design discussion, investigate why something is going wrong, and help engineers evaluate their options. You’re comfortable getting into technical details when the situation calls for it.
You take ownership when things get difficult. If a release keeps slipping or an issue keeps returning, you work to understand the cause and help fix it. You know when to delegate, when to coach, and when to step in yourself.
You have good product and business judgment. You understand that engineering decisions involve tradeoffs among customer value, speed, quality, cost, and long-term maintainability.
You communicate clearly and build trust across engineering, product, and leadership. Experience working with distributed teams is particularly valuable.
You’re comfortable in a lean company where leaders stay close to the work. Experience with data-intensive products, SaaS platforms, or AI-enabled development is a plus. Music-industry experience is not required.
WHY CHARTMETRIC
You’ll help shape the engineering organization behind a profitable global business, with direct access to the founder and a clear connection between your work and customer outcomes.
Our challenges span large-scale data collection, analytics, product development, and new AI experiences. You’ll have room to improve an established platform while helping the team build what comes next.
COMPENSATION
$200,000–$250,000 base salary, plus equity and benefits.
The actual offer will depend on experience, qualifications, and the scope of responsibility.
HOW TO APPLY
Apply through this posting. We’d love to hear about an engineering team you’ve led, a difficult problem you helped solve, and what improved because of your involvement.
Pay: $190,000.00 - $240,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Flexible schedule
Work Location: Hybrid remote in San Mateo, CA 94401
See All 36 Head Of Engineering Jobs in California
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Find Head Of Engineering JobsHead Of Engineering Jobs by City in California
Where California roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Head Of Engineering Job Market in California
A snapshot from current California openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
- Energy
What California Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in head of engineering jobs across California.
- Bachelor's or master's degree in engineering, computer science, or a closely related discipline
- Proven experience leading and scaling multi-team engineering organizations in a California-based tech or defense environment
- Deep expertise in at least one core California industry vertical such as semiconductors, aerospace, or enterprise software
- Demonstrated ability to own technical roadmap and align engineering execution with business objectives
- Experience recruiting and developing senior engineers and managing cross-functional stakeholder relationships
- Familiarity with California labor law requirements including pay transparency and classification compliance for engineering staff
Head Of Engineering Jobs in California: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a head of engineering in California?
Most heads of engineering in California reach the role by progressing from individual contributor engineer to engineering manager and then director before stepping into an org-wide leadership seat. A bachelor's degree in engineering or computer science is the standard baseline, and many California employers at larger technology or defense firms prefer a master's degree. No state-issued license is required for the role itself, though engineers who also practice as licensed professional engineers in California do so through the California Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists.
How much do head of engineerings make in California?
Head of engineerings in California earn a median of about $210,280 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $137,900 for the lowest 10% to over $296,130 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire head of engineerings in California?
Employers hiring head of engineerings in California right now include Ethernovia, Snorkel AI, and OUMI, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of October 2026. California's concentration of semiconductor, defense, and enterprise software companies means demand for this role is broadly distributed from the Bay Area down through Los Angeles and San Diego.
Which California cities have the most head of engineering jobs?
San Francisco, San Jose, and Palo Alto account for the largest share of head of engineering openings in California. The Bay Area leads because of its dense concentration of technology headquarters and venture-backed companies, while Los Angeles hiring is driven by aerospace, defense, and entertainment technology firms, and San Diego's openings are anchored by telecommunications, biotech, and defense contractors like Qualcomm and Northrop Grumman.
Are there remote head of engineering jobs in California?
Yes, and more than most comparable leadership roles, because heads of engineering at software and platform companies can operate effectively across distributed teams. About 60% of head of engineering openings tied to California are remote or hybrid as of October 2026, reflecting how many California technology employers have formalized flexible work policies. The most fully remote roles tend to sit at software-first or cloud infrastructure companies rather than hardware, semiconductor, or defense organizations where on-site presence is required.
How can I get hired as a head of engineering in California with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is securing a senior software or systems engineering role at a mid-size California technology company and taking on informal team-lead or tech-lead responsibilities before pursuing a formal manager title. Large California employers like Salesforce, Intel, and Broadcom run internal engineering leadership development programs and regularly promote from senior individual contributor roles. Adjacent roles such as engineering program manager, principal engineer, or director of technical program management frequently serve as lateral moves into an engineering leadership seat, and a strong technical portfolio or open-source project history gives candidates without a formal management title a measurable edge.
Where can I find and apply to head of engineering jobs in California?
You can find and apply to head of engineering jobs in California on Migrate Mate, which lists current California openings across technology, defense, clean energy, and other sectors. Find roles that fit your background and apply directly to the employers posting them.
See All 36 Head Of Engineering Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
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