VP, Head of Digital Product Engineering

Job Description:

Merkle is seeking a VP, Head of Digital Product Engineering to lead the commercial growth, market strategy, and continued evolution of our Digital Product Engineering practice. This executive will help clients solve complex business and technology challenges when commercially available platforms do not fully meet their needs, creating custom digital products and experiences that bridge the gap between client needs and existing market solutions.

This is a highly client-facing, commercial leadership role. You will build relationships with senior client executives, identify and shape new opportunities, lead product and technology solutioning, and help grow both existing accounts and net-new business. You will bring together product thinking, custom engineering, cloud-native development, and applied AI to create differentiated solutions that deliver measurable business value.

You will spend approximately 50% to 70% of your time externally focused on clients, market development, solutioning, and commercial growth. The remaining time will be dedicated to providing executive oversight of active engagements, supporting practice direction, and ensuring our teams deliver innovative, high-quality solutions. You will not manage day-to-day delivery or have direct people-management responsibilities, but you will serve as an influential practice leader and trusted partner to our delivery and engineering leadership.

The ideal candidate began their career close to the engineering craft and has progressed into product, consulting, and commercial leadership. You can engage credibly in architecture and engineering discussions while also leading strategic conversations with CMOs, CIOs, CTOs, business leaders, and product executives. You know how to turn emerging technologies into practical products and can inspire confidence by helping clients see opportunities beyond what they are currently asking for.

You will report to the President, Digital Business Transformation.

This role is open to candidates located within the United States. Employees within 90 minutes of our New York, Michigan, California, or Illinois offices may be expected to work onsite three days per week. This is a remote role for non-commutable candidates within the United States. Travel of approximately 30% to 50% is expected for client meetings, workshops, pitches, conferences, and team collaboration.

Responsibilities

Commercial Growth & Market Leadership 

• Own the commercial growth strategy for the Digital Product Engineering practice, with accountability for revenue growth and margin performance. 

• Expand existing client relationships while helping establish new client accounts and market opportunities. 

• Build trusted relationships with senior client executives across business, marketing, product, data, and technology organizations. 

• Lead executive-level discovery, product strategy, and solutioning conversations that uncover unmet needs and translate them into commercially viable opportunities. 

• Support pitches, proposals, RFPs, business cases, demonstrations, and other pre-sales activities. 

• Partner with account and growth leaders to bring Digital Product Engineering capabilities into broader dentsu and Merkle client relationships. 

• Represent the practice in the market through executive conversations, conferences, thought leadership, and industry engagement. 

• Inspire client confidence through a combination of technical credibility, product vision, commercial judgment, and executive presence. 

Product Strategy, Solutioning & Innovation 

• Define differentiated product and engineering solutions for complex client needs that cannot be fully addressed through commercially available platforms. 

• Apply modern product-development practices to shape product visions, roadmaps, value propositions, and measurable success criteria. 

• Translate emerging technologies into practical, scalable products and services that create meaningful client value. 

• Lead the development of solutions using applied AI, helping clients use AI models and capabilities to create and improve digital products. 

• Maintain a strong conceptual understanding of AI, cloud-native engineering, composable architecture, full-stack engineering, DevOps, and contemporary product practices. 

• Use AI-assisted development approaches, rapid prototyping, and experimentation to demonstrate possibilities and accelerate solution development. 

• Remain ahead of client demand by continuously exploring new technologies, product patterns, and methods of solving business problems. 

• Partner with product, engineering, architecture, strategy, creative, data, and delivery leaders to develop integrated solutions. 

Practice Leadership & Delivery Oversight 

• Serve as the commercial and go-to-market leader for the Digital Product Engineering practice. 

• Establish and communicate a clear market position for the practice, including its capabilities, differentiators, offerings, and growth priorities. 

• Provide visible leadership to the broader practice and help create alignment across product, engineering, architecture, and delivery teams. 

• Operate as an influential leader of leaders without relying on direct reporting relationships. 

• Partner closely with delivery leadership to ensure commercial commitments can be delivered successfully and profitably. 

• Provide executive oversight for active engagements, identifying risks, removing barriers, and helping teams navigate complex client environments. 

• Maintain awareness of delivery health, client satisfaction, revenue, margin, and account-expansion opportunities without managing day-to-day execution. 

• Help build repeatable solution patterns, offerings, demonstrations, and points of view that improve the practice’s ability to sell and scale. 

• Champion a culture of innovation, adaptability, critical thinking, continuous improvement, and client value. 

What Success Looks Like 

• Digital Product Engineering is recognized by clients as the team that solves complex problems where standard platforms and commercially available products fall short. 

• The practice grows revenue and margin across existing accounts while establishing new client relationships. 

• Clients view you as a trusted executive advisor who brings forward ideas and opportunities beyond the immediate request. 

• New solutions and offerings effectively incorporate applied AI, cloud-native engineering, and modern product-development approaches. 

• Product opportunities are translated into clear, compelling, and commercially viable solutions. 

• Delivery and commercial leaders operate as strong partners, with clear alignment between what is sold and what can be successfully delivered. 

• The practice has a compelling market story, differentiated offerings, and repeatable solution patterns that support continued growth. 

• You establish credibility across industries and can adapt your communication to executives, business owners, product leaders, technologists, and delivery teams. 

• Teams view you as a unifying practice leader who creates direction and momentum, even without formal people-management authority. 

Qualifications 

• Approximately 15 or more years of progressively responsible experience in product engineering, digital product development, software engineering, technology consulting, or related disciplines. 

• A career foundation in hands-on engineering, architecture, or technical delivery, followed by increasing responsibility in product, client, and commercial leadership. 

• Demonstrated success shaping and selling custom digital products, engineering solutions, or technology-enabled transformation programs. 

• Experience growing existing client relationships and supporting or leading net-new business development. 

• Strong product leadership capabilities, supported by credible experience and knowledge across software engineering and architecture. 

• Ability to lead product discovery, define value propositions, shape roadmaps, establish measurable outcomes, and translate ideas into executable solutions. 

• Experience with modern product-development practices, including discovery, experimentation, agile delivery, roadmapping, KPI definition, and outcome-based delivery. 

• Strong understanding of cloud-native development, composable architecture, full-stack engineering, DevOps, and custom application development. 

• Practical understanding of applied AI and how AI capabilities can be incorporated into client products, workflows, and experiences. 

• Experience using or directing AI-assisted software development, rapid prototyping, or comparable product-innovation methods. 

• Demonstrated ability to engage credibly with CMOs, CIOs, CTOs, product executives, business leaders, and technical teams. 

• Experience working across multiple industries and quickly developing an understanding of new client environments and business models. 

• Proven ability to lead through influence across highly matrixed organizations, including experience guiding leaders of leaders. 

• Commercial acumen, including experience with revenue growth, margin, solution pricing, proposals, RFPs, pitches, and executive presentations. 

• Exceptional executive presence, communication skills, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and client relationship capabilities. 

• A portfolio of recent work from approximately the past 10 years that demonstrates digital products, custom solutions, applications, websites, or other market-facing outcomes. 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Product Management, Business, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. 

• Willingness and ability to travel approximately 30% to 50%. 

• Must be authorized to work in the United States. 

Leadership Profile 

• Aptitude: The intellectual curiosity, technical foundation, and critical-thinking ability to understand unfamiliar problems and emerging technologies quickly. 

• Attitude: A consulting mindset centered on continuous improvement, innovation, client service, and a willingness to go beyond the basic request. 

• Adaptability: The ability to move comfortably across industries, audiences, technologies, and levels of an organization. 

• Executive presence: The confidence, competence, and communication skills to lead productive conversations with senior client executives. 

• Product vision: The ability to identify what should be built, clarify why it matters, and shape a solution that creates measurable value. 

• Technical credibility: The experience to stand independently in engineering and architecture discussions without needing to be the deepest specialist on every topic. 

• Commercial orientation: The ability to create market opportunities, build client demand, and convert ideas into sustainable revenue and margin growth. 

The annual base salary range for this position is $196,000 - $275,000. Placement within the salary range is based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and other factors permitted by law. Additionally, this position is eligible for discretionary incentive compensation.

Benefits available with this position include:

·         Medical, vision, and dental insurance

·         Life insurance

·         Short-term and long-term disability insurance

·         401k

·         Flexible paid time off

·         At least 15 paid holidays per year

·         Paid sick and safe leave

·         Paid parental leave

Dentsu also complies with applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, in accordance with its plans and policies. For further details regarding Dentsu benefits, please visit www.dentsubenefitsplus.com.

To begin the application process, please click on the “Apply” button at the top of this job post. Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, and qualified candidates will be contacted for next steps.

At dentsu, we believe great work happens when we’re connected. Our way of working combines flexibility with in-person collaboration to spark ideas and strengthen our teams. Employees who live within a commutable distance of one of our hub offices, currently located in Chicago, metro Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York City, are required and expected to work from the office three days per week (two days per week for employees based in Los Angeles). Dentsu may designate other Hub offices at any time. Those who live outside a commutable range may be designated as remote, depending on the role and business needs. Regardless of your work location, we expect our employees to be flexible to meet the needs of our Company and clients, which may include attendance in an office.

Dentsu is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees. We do this without regard to race, color, national origin, sex , sexual orientation, gender identity, age, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, ancestry, physical or mental disability, marital status, political affiliation, religious practices and observances, citizenship status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.

Dentsu is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to, among others, individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans. If you need an accommodation because of a disability to search and apply for a career opportunity with us, please send an e-mail to [email protected] by clicking on the link to let us know the nature of your accommodation request and your contact information. We are here to support you.

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