About the Role
Balio is hiring a Head of Portfolio Engineering to set the technical direction for our portfolio of acquired software businesses and build the engineering function that will scale with us. This is a hands‑on leadership role that sits at group level; working across every product and team in our portfolio, you’ll raise the quality bar, consolidate infrastructure, and give our engineering teams the tools and standards to build AI‑native by default. This is a fully remote role and you will work with teams across multiple time zones (AEST to PST).
What You’ll Own
- Engineering leadership across all portfolio companies, setting the technical direction, quality bar, and operating cadence.
- Hiring, developing, and holding accountable engineering leads at each portfolio company; building a bench of talent across the group.
- Driving an AI‑first engineering approach, identifying where AI tooling, automation, and agents can accelerate product delivery and reduce manual overhead.
- Partnering with portfolio company GMs to translate business goals into technical roadmaps.
- Serving as the primary escalation point for engineering risk, architecture decisions, and major technical investments across the portfolio.
- Running a lightweight shared services function where applicable – identifying where tooling, infrastructure, or practices can be standardised across companies.
- Reporting directly to the Head of Portfolio you will serve as the technical lead within the Balio leadership team.
Who You Are
- A senior engineering leader – you've run engineering teams of 15+ people and know what good looks like across the full SDLC. Strong preference for experience managing across multiple teams.
- Broadly technically credible – across SDLC, architecture, infrastructure, and delivery, with strong mentorship and decision‑support capability.
- Operationally sharp – comfortable managing across multiple products/companies simultaneously, with strong prioritisation instincts.
- An AI native – you use AI tools daily, you think about how to embed them in engineering workflows, and you hold a genuine conviction that AI changes how software gets built. The focus is practical productivity gains, not buzzword‑led initiatives.
- A strong communicator – able to translate technical complexity for commercial stakeholders and vice versa.
- Comfortable with ambiguity – this role is being built; the right person will shape it.
Background we’d expect
- 10+ years in software engineering, with 4+ years in an engineering leadership role (VP Eng, Head of Engineering, or equivalent).
- Experience in a multi‑product or portfolio environment preferred (PE‑backed, holding company, or venture studio).
- Track record of improving engineering velocity and quality in acquired or turnaround businesses.
- Experience shipping measurable quality or productivity gains using AI assisted workflows.
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