VPoE (Vice President of Engineering) refers to the management leader responsible for engineering organizations.

As companies accelerate DX initiatives and engineering teams scale up, this specialized role has gained attention for solving “people and organizational” challenges that CTOs focused on technical strategy alone cannot address.

With annual salaries often exceeding 10 million yen (approximately $65,000-70,000 USD), this position is gaining importance as a new career option for engineers.

This article comprehensively explains VPoE’s definition, differences from CTO, responsibilities, salary ranges, career pathways, and required skills.

1．What is VPoE? The Engineering Organization Management Leader

We’ll explain VPoE’s official title, basic definition, and the background behind this role’s emergence.

Official Title and Fundamental Role

VPoE stands for “Vice President of Engineering”—the management leader of the engineering department.

Rather than technical decision-making, VPoEs oversee overall organizational operations including engineer recruitment, development, evaluation, team formation, development environment setup, and cross-departmental coordination.

While originating in Western tech companies, adoption is progressing in Japan among growth companies like Mercari, LINE Yahoo, and Raksul.

Why VPoE Positions Are Needed

As organizations expand to 30, 50, or 100 members, it becomes difficult for a single CTO to handle both technical strategy and organizational management.

Specialized responses become necessary for “people-related” challenges: determining who suits which project, optimizing team composition, and maintaining engineer motivation.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ “White Paper on Information and Communications,” Japanese companies are accelerating DX promotion while IT talent shortages intensify.

Competition for talented engineers has grown fierce, making organizational management expertise—creating attractive organizations and recruiting, developing, and retaining talent—a key determinant of corporate competitiveness.

(Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications “White Paper on Information and Communications”)

Primary Responsibility Areas

VPoE’s responsibility area encompasses maximizing overall engineering organization performance.

Major Responsibility Areas:

Engineer recruitment, development, and evaluation: recruitment strategy planning, career path establishment, evaluation system operation

Team formation and organizational design: optimal placement, scaling strategies

Development and work environment setup: tool selection, productivity improvement, organizational culture cultivation

Cross-departmental coordination support: coordination with product, business, and HR departments

Executive reporting and recommendations: organizational status reporting, technical investment proposals

(Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare “Vocational Ability Development System for IT Fields”)

2. Differences Between VPoE and CTO

While often confused, VPoE and CTO have clear differences in responsibility scope and roles.

Responsibility Scope Differences: Technical Strategy vs. Organizational Management

CTOs (Chief Technology Officers) oversee company-wide technical strategy, making “What (what to build)” decisions about technology adoption and system architecture design.

VPoE specializes in optimizing “Who (who builds it)” and “How (how it’s built).”

The central focus is “people and organization”: how to recruit, develop, and evaluate excellent engineers; which team compositions prove most efficient; and how to create environments where engineers achieve maximum performance.

CTO and VPoE function as complementary “two wheels of a vehicle.” CTOs design technical strategies that VPoEs realize organizationally.

Perspective and Skill Set Differences

CTOs make judgments from macro perspectives like company-wide technical strategy and medium-to-long-term roadmaps. VPoEs emphasize micro perspectives: individual engineer growth and daily organizational operations.

CTOs require advanced technical capabilities, architect abilities, technology trend forecasting skills, and business-perspective technical judgment.

VPoEs need people management skills, recruitment capabilities, organizational design abilities, communication skills, and data-based problem-solving abilities. While technical background is necessary, the depth of specialization required is less than CTOs.

CTOs primarily engage in strategic dialogue with management and product departments. VPoEs coordinate daily with diverse departments—HR, general affairs, sales—functioning as organizational “hubs.”

3.Distinguishing VPoE from Similar Roles

Besides VPoE, similar positions exist. Let’s clarify each difference.

Differences from Engineering Manager (EM)

EMs are positions directly managing 1-3 teams of approximately 5-15 engineers, handling daily task management, 1-on-1s, and project progress management.

VPoE is the overall engineering organization leader—a senior position managing multiple EMs.

VPoEs make strategic, company-wide decisions about organization-wide recruitment strategy, evaluation system design, and organizational structure determination, functioning as executive positions close to C-level management.

Differences from VPoP (Vice President of Product)

VPoP (Product Management Leader) makes “What to build” decisions.

VPoE specializes in “How to build” realization. The focus is efficiently and high-quality realization of product visions defined by VPoPs through engineering organizations.

Differences from Tech Lead

Tech Leads exercise technical judgment leadership in specific projects or technical domains, working hands-on as “playing managers.” VPoEs focus exclusively on organizational design and talent strategy as “management specialists.”

4. Specific VPoE Job Responsibilities

What daily tasks do VPoEs perform? We’ll explain six major responsibilities in detail.

Engineer Recruitment Activities

Responsibilities include recruitment planning based on business plans, recruitment requirement definition, interview flow construction, interviewer training, and candidate experience improvement.

Recruitment PR—operating tech blogs, hosting study sessions, SNS outreach, referral recruitment promotion—represents another important role.

Engineer Development and Career Support

Arranging continuous growth environments through 1-on-1s, mentor systems, training programs, technical book purchases, and conference participation support.

Designing dual-track career paths for specialists and managers while clarifying promotion and advancement criteria.

Evaluation System Design and Operation

Setting evaluation axes for technical skills, management capabilities, and influence while clearly documenting grade definitions.

Introducing OKRs or MBOs and conducting evaluation interviews. Cultivating constructive feedback culture.

Team Formation and Organizational Design

Determining optimal team composition and skill balance adjustments according to projects. Designing organizational structures—functional, divisional, etc.—appropriate to business phases.

Planning scaling strategies during organizational expansion and implementing measures to overcome barriers at 30, 50, and 100 members.

Development and Work Environment Setup

Selecting development tools, establishing CI/CD, measuring and improving productivity. Determining technical debt response policies in collaboration with CTOs.

Building remote/hybrid work environments, cultivating organizational cultures with high psychological safety, conducting satisfaction surveys and improvements.

Cross-Departmental Coordination and Stakeholder Management

Bridging between product, business, HR, and other departments.

Regularly reporting organizational status to management, proposing technical investments, and negotiating budgets. Early detection of organizational risks and escalation.

5.VPoE Salary Ranges and Management Experience Market Valu

How do VPoE salaries compare to general engineers? We’ll explain based on data.

Average VPoE Salary: 10-15 Million Yen

Salary guidelines by company size:

Salary Ranges by Company Size:

Startups (under 50 employees): 8-12 million yen

Mid-size ventures (50-300 employees): 10-15 million yen

Major IT companies (300+ employees): 12-20 million yen

Mega ventures/Foreign companies: 15-30 million yen

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s “Basic Survey on Wage Structure,” the average annual salary for systems engineers and programmers is approximately 5.5 million yen.

VPoE salaries reach 2-3 times or more compared to typical engineers. Additionally, doda surveys indicate overall IT engineer average salaries at 4.62 million yen, demonstrating that management positions like VPoE can expect significantly higher compensation than general engineers.

Job market research shows approximately 670,000 yen salary offer differences based on management experience presence, indicating high market valuation of organizational management capabilities.

(Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare “Basic Survey on Wage Structure”; doda “IT Engineer Average Salary”; Job Draft “2025 Edition: Thorough Analysis of Dramatic IT Engineer Job Market“)

Primary Factors Affecting Salary

Salary Determination Factors:

Number of engineers managed: 10-30 members: 9+ million yen; 30-50 members: 12+ million yen; 50+ members: 15+ million yen

Company growth phase: Seed to early: stock option-centered; listed companies: stable high compensation

Business profitability: BtoB SaaS, finance, advertising tend toward high salaries

Management experience years: Under 3 years: 8+ million yen; 3-5 years: 10+ million yen; 5+ years: 15+ million yen

Technology stack scarcity: AI/machine learning, blockchain, etc.

VPoE high market value stems from organizational building capability scarcity, business contribution through understanding both technical and business aspects, and high recruitment difficulty.

6.Three Career Paths to Becoming VPoE

Multiple routes exist for becoming VPoE. Let’s understand each characteristic.

Pattern 1: Internal Career Advancement

Typical steps: Engineer (1-3 years) → Senior Engineer/Tech Lead (3-5 years) → Engineering Manager (2-4 years) → VPoE.

Internal promotion benefits include existing trust relationships, deep understanding of organizational culture and business, gradual growth, and low risk.

Success points include early management orientation expression, small team leader experience, active recruitment involvement, and building trust with management.

Pattern 2: Career Change Through Job Transfer

3+ years EM experience serves as the job transfer guideline. Utilize IT industry-specialized recruitment agencies and inventory management achievements.

Demonstrating quantitative results is crucial: “how many team members led,” “recruitment success rate improvements,” “turnover rate reductions.”

Pattern 3: Joining as Founder/Founding Member

Another path involves joining early-stage startups as VPoE founding member.

Attractions include C-level management participation, experience building organizations from zero, and stock option upside. While high-risk, high-return, experiencing organizational scaling from 10 to 100 members creates irreplaceable career assets.

7.Five Essential Skills Required for VPoE

We’ll specifically explain skill sets necessary for VPoE success.

1. Engineering Technical Background

5+ years practical experience serves as guideline, with expectations for system architecture design understanding, multiple technology stack experience, and technology trend learning.

While deep CTO-level specialization isn’t necessary, essential understanding of technical fundamentals and ability for technical conversations with engineers is required.

Technical background forms the foundation for gaining engineer trust and proves indispensable for CTO communication, candidate assessment during recruitment, and technical decision-making support.

(Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare “Vocational Ability Development System for IT Fields”)

2. People Management Capabilities

Regular 1-on-1 implementation, constructive feedback provision, and career consultation responses are required. Understanding individual motivation sources and applying appropriate approaches to enhance engagement.

Turnover prevention and psychological safety assurance are important. Managing different skill levels from junior to senior while creating inclusive organizational cultures respecting diverse backgrounds.

3. Recruitment and Organizational Design Capabilities

Recruitment requirement definition, candidate assessment, offer condition design, and recruitment branding abilities are required.

Organizational design requires optimal team composition judgment, functional vs. divisional structure selection, and scaling strategy planning. Balancing authority delegation and governance while designing systems reconciling discretion with direction.

4. Communication Skills and Leadership

Relationships with management require ability to translate business strategy into technical strategy, data-based explanation and proposal skills, and budget negotiation capabilities.

Relationships with other departments require technical explanations to non-engineers, interdepartmental interest coordination, and project facilitation abilities.

Leadership requires vision formulation and dissemination, decision-making capability, transformation promotion capability, and exemplary behavior.

5. Problem-Solving and Data Analysis Capabilities

Setting and monitoring organizational health indicators: engagement, turnover rates, recruitment success rates, development productivity.

Analyzing problem root causes and planning fundamental solutions. Setting KPIs, analyzing various data, measuring productivity indicators (deployment frequency, lead time, failure recovery time, etc.) to realize data-driven decision-making.

8.Major Company Case Studies Implementing VPoE

Let’s learn implementation effects from companies actually establishing VPoE positions.

Mercari, Inc.

Rapid business expansion created hundreds-member engineering organizations with domestic and international locations, necessitating separation of technical strategy and organizational operations.

VPoE handles hundreds-member organizational oversight, global recruitment promotion, engineering culture cultivation, and development productivity improvement initiatives.

LINE Yahoo Corporation

Operating multiple large-scale services with thousands-member engineering organization.

VPoE achieves service-wide technical organization standardization, cross-divisional career path design, and evaluation system unification ensuring fairness.

Raksul Inc.

Established VPoE during rapid Series C+ growth period, strengthening recruitment strategy and standardizing development processes.

Tech blog outreach and event hosting increased recruitment numbers; team composition optimization improved development speed; 1-on-1 implementation and career path clarification improved engineer retention rates.

9.Actions You Can Start Today Toward VPoE

We’ll introduce specific actions you can start immediately toward becoming VPoE.

1. Actively Accumulate Management Experience

Volunteer for 2-3 member small team leader or project leader roles, gradually expanding responsibility scope. Accept junior engineer mentor roles to hone people development support skills.

Gain systematic knowledge through books like “The Art of 1-on-1 Meetings” and “High Output Management” (Andrew S. Grove), improving listening and coaching skills through practice.

2. Actively Engage in Recruitment Activities

Volunteer as technical or culture-fit interviewer, acquiring recruitment skills through practice: candidate assessment, personality understanding, company appeal communication.

Introduce excellent engineers from your network, contributing to referral recruitment. Participate in recruitment PR activities: tech blog writing, study session presentations, SNS outreach.

3. Increase Cross-Departmental Coordination Experience

Participate in requirement definition with product managers, experiencing processes translating business requirements into technical specifications.

Create opportunities to explain technical content clearly to non-engineering departments. Join cross-departmental projects to gain organization-wide perspectives.

4. Cultivate Management Perspectives

Read management-related books, pursue MBA or business school programs, and online courses. Learn modern business thinking through books like “Essentialism,” “OKR,” and “THE MODEL.”

Acquire basic knowledge of income statements and balance sheets while understanding metrics like ROI, LTV, and CAC. Hone abilities translating business objectives into technical initiatives.

5. Understand Your Job Market Value

Meet regularly with career advisors to objectively understand current market value. Regularly check VPoE and EM job postings, analyzing trends in skills and experience companies seek.

Clarify your gaps and determine skills to prioritize developing. Participate in VPoE and EM communities, interacting with actual practitioners to find role models.

10. VPoE as Career Holding Keys to Organizational Growth

VPoE is a position specializing in “people and organization” as engineering organization management leader.

The role clearly differs from CTOs handling technical strategy, maximizing overall organizational performance through engineer recruitment, development, evaluation, team formation, development environment setup, and cross-departmental coordination.

With annual salaries often exceeding 10 million yen, market value is rising as a high-scarcity career path during the engineer shortage era.

Accumulating management experience, engaging in recruitment activities, and increasing cross-departmental coordination represent first steps toward VPoE. As an indispensable presence for engineering organizational growth, demand is expected to increase further.

Build your career steadily through actions you can start today.