VP of Engineering

Mission

The mission of the VP of Engineering at Smartcat is to build and grow a best-in-class, high-performing and adaptable engineering team focused on continuous delivery from development to production deployment and everything in between. Your success will be measured by contributing to Smartcat’s fast quarter over quarter growth rate of 33% through the accelerated and predictable development cycle, as well as the stable performance of the platform.

Your outcomes

• Introduce methodology of measuring output/velocity of development in the first 3 months. Continuously evolve cutting-edge development, quality assurance, release, and engineering processes to increase the output of the engineering team 2x+ within the next 12 months.
• Expand the team of highly-qualified engineers in the next 12 months by 40-50%. You are expected to strengthen the recruitment process, define career ladders and put together an effective organizational structure, as well as provide expert technical guidance, effective coaching, and career development.
• Define the future product architecture and lead transition to this architecture in the next 12 months.
• Contribute to the evolution of the company's management and grow the next level of technical leaders. Nurture a culture of continuous improvement, open-mindedness, and experimentation paired with robust metrics-driven decision making.
• Update and properly describe the engineering processes, key metrics, and performance indicators driving the evolution of the engineering team.
• Partner with the leadership and the product teams to define the roadmap and contribute to the product strategy. Together with the product teams, create quarterly roadmaps, and ensure timely and high-quality execution.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience as an IT-manager for a successful engineering team with outstanding achievements. Their tech-stack: Back end: .Net Framework v4.7.2 и ASP.Net (WebAPI), migration to .Net Core; Front end: Vue.js.
• Background is in B2B SaaS software development including architecture, infrastructure, deployment or incident management.
• Knowledge and experience of Agile practices and ability to work and run own scrum teams.
• Excellent communication and management skills to oversee colleague and partner interactions.
• Fluent English both written and spoken to interact with colleagues, customers, and partners.
• Ability to think big and start small, meaning finding the easiest and fastest solutions to test hypotheses and get results.
• A team-builder, innovator, disruptor and a passionate technologist.
• A data-driven approach to IT. You need to be ready to let the numbers measure success.
• Drive for growth and sense of urgency.
• Integrity and full commitment.
• Readiness to work in a highly intense startup environment requiring extreme focus, a strong sense of ownership, and persistence to break through.
• Growth mindset.
• Openness to constructive feedback and the opinions and ideas of others.

Why joining Smartcat might be your best move so far

• The ongoing rise of the content economy is causing a massive shift in the language industry. All today’s megatrends — big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning — are converging in it at lightning speed. Smartcat’s disruptive business model taps into this $50b industry with a market network where buyers and suppliers connect, collaborate, and leverage company free-to-use workflow SaaS. The next decade will be the era of market networks and reinventing the $10 trillion service economy, and they’re pioneering this global transformation in all things language-related.
• You will drive changes in how an old-fashioned global language industry operates while improving how hundreds of thousands of people work, and millions of people exchange knowledge and ideas in the world.
• While the language industry is big and fragmented enough to keep them busy building a billion-dollar company in the next few years, they are already seeing how the network naturally expands to adjacent language and content-related verticals, expanding their TAM and making journey even more exciting.
• They are a global team of 100+ enthusiastic people, with hubs in Boston, Amsterdam, Limassol, Moscow, and Hong Kong — and their users and partners are scattered all around the globe. They’re eager to succeed and transform the world of language services for the better. They grow aggressively while preserving their culture of empathy. As diverse as they are, they love working and having fun together, and they’re sure you’ll love working with them too.
• Smartcat is backed by Matrix Partners, FJ Labs, and other top VC firms focusing on SaaS and marketplace startups (like HubSpot, Zendesk, Uber, Stripe, RigUp and Quora in their portfolios). This helps them innovate at a fast pace and learn from top professionals in other industries.
• They are looking for someone who will become a part of the executive team and play a critical role in the most exciting part of your journey from a post-Series B startup to a company exceeding $1b in GMV. The journey isn’t for the faint of heart. You need to be an extremely fast learner to bring value to their users and the industry as a whole. You need to see the big picture and execute strategies that significantly increase shareholder value over time. They need a sharp mind who can stay two steps ahead on the road with them. They’ve got lots of success to share if you’re ready for it.