VP Engineering and Data

Job description

**Can you help us fix the world's most broken supply chain?** The fashion industry produces over 100 billion garments a year. 60% end up in landfill, not because people don't want these clothes, but because the supply chain for getting secondhand fashion from donation to resale is completely offline, manual, and broken. Fleek is fixing this. Our mission is to make secondhand the first choice. We're building the infrastructure powering the global secondhand clothing trade, through a B2B marketplace and the AI systems digitising the supply chain behind it. *Through Fleek, vintage stores, online resellers, and retail buyers source graded secondhand inventory directly from wholesalers and rag houses across multiple countries. Our key enabler is FleekSort, an AI model fine-tuned on secondhand fashion, that can grade, price, and categorise items with just a photo, turning what has historically been an opaque and manual trade into a structured, searchable, and tradable global inventory layer.* Since 2022, we've saved 9 million items from landfill while tripling in size year-on-year. We're backed by some of the world's best investors, including a16z, Y Combinator, and HV Capital, alongside world-class angels who helped build Depop, Shopify, and Postmates. Today, we serve thousands of resellers and retailers across the UK, Europe, and the US. With the secondhand fashion market projected to reach $350B by 2027, Fleek is building the AI-native operational and financial backbone for secondhand commerce globally. We're looking for people who want to build something that matters, and move fast doing it. Sound good? Keep reading. **About the Role** To support our next stage of expansion, Fleek is seeking an experienced and ambitiousVP Engineering to lead and scale its Engineering organisation. The VP of Engineering will oversee a fast-growing engineering team, soon to be approximately 30 engineers, distributed across London and India, as well as manage Fleek's Data team, which is currently a team of four. This is a senior leadership position reporting directly to Sanket Agarwal, Co-Founder ofFleek, and will play a critical role in shaping the company's technical direction, culture,and execution as Fleek scales. What you'll Own - Lead delivery of Fleek's AI initiatives, which sit at the heart of the company's product and long-term strategy - Foster a culture of experimentation, agility, and hustle, encouraging rapid iteration and high ownership across teams - Build and evolve the engineering organisation structure, ensuring scalability as the company grows - Continue expanding the Engineering team, with the majority of hiring based in London - Own the Data function as it grows alongside the broader Engineering organisation. - Serve as a hands-on technical leader, able to build credibility quickly with engineers and guide architecture and execution - Attract, hire, and retain exceptional "A-class" talent, acting as a true talent magnet for the organisation - Partner closely with product and business leadership to ensure engineering teams are deeply aligned with company outcomes **Who We're Looking For** - Experience leading engineering teams in high-growth, scaling environments - A background that began as a back-end engineer, with strong technical foundations - Proven ability to build engineering teams that are both product-focused and business-oriented - Previous experience overseeing data and managing data scientists - Experience working with or building AI-driven products - Strong leadership presence, with a track record of inspiring high-performing, fast-moving teams - Previous entrepreneurial experience in an ambitious tech-driven scale-up, or as a founder, would be advantageous - Experience in an international marketplace business is a strong plus for this role - Deeply analytical: data-driven decision making is second nature - Insatiably curious: you're constantly learning about new tools, approaches, and market changes - Hungry and ambitious: you're driven to stay relevant and push boundaries - Change agent: you've driven transformation in previous organizations - Hands-on: you're not afraid to roll up your sleeves and do the work yourself **How We Work** *Fleek is an in-office company. We believe the best work happens when people are together: the quick decisions, the cross-functional energy, the ability to solve problems in real time. Most of the team works from our London HQ 3–4 days a week.* *We're not prescriptive about it. Performance and trust matter more than attendance. We hire adults and treat them accordingly.* **The Practicalities** - **Location:** London HQ, Commercial St, E1 (Liverpool St / Aldgate East) - **Work model:** In-office, typically 3–4 days per week. - **Stage:** Post-Series B, hyper-growth - **Team:** 100+ across London, India, and Pakistan (~20 in London office) - **Visa:** Unable to sponsor visas for this role - **Culture:** High ownership, non-hierarchical, fast-moving. Founder-led with strong opinions loosely held. **Our Values** ***Five values shape how we work at Fleek:*** - **Dream Big and Disrupt Yourself:** Push the most ambitious version of what you're building. Step out of your comfort zone. Nothing is out of reach. - **Absolute Ownership:** The buck stops with you. Drive initiatives to completion. Experiment, learn, persevere. The job isn't done until the job is done. - **Curiosity Leads the Way:** Don't accept anything at face value. Ask questions you don't know the answer to. That's how you innovate. - **Talk to the Customer:** Deeply understand their challenges, motivations, and ambitions. Every decision starts with the customer at the centre. - **Embrace Diversity:** A global team building for a global supply chain. Bring your authentic self and embrace the diversity of everyone you encounter.