Position: VP of Engineering
Company: BrightLocal
Category: Lead
Experience required: 5y
English level: upper

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced and proactive VP of Engineering to lead a skilled and diverse development team* within a successful, fast growing tech company.

Our mission is to enable every marketer to become brilliant at local SEO. We achieve this through a powerful combination of software (SaaS), services and customer education.

We are an industry leader in local marketing analytics and reporting, and pride ourselves on delivering smart solutions that solve the biggest needs of our customers. As our VP of Engineering you will have a direct influence on how quickly we deliver solutions to customers and therefore a direct influence on the future success of the business.

We are looking for a technically confident and strong people leader to lead our Kyiv-based development team. As our VP of Engineering you will manage and lead the Development Leadership Team (Kyiv) and oversee all development activities. Your primary responsibility is to improve the speed, efficiency and quality of product development at BrightLocal.

You will work closely with the Dev-Leadership team and HR to improve communication, motivation and morale within the development team. You will identify issues with people and processes and work collaboratively with your team to improve these.

You will develop a clear understanding of our company mission, objectives, milestones and customer needs. You will regularly communicate and educate your team on these so they understand why and how their work matters to the business.

You will report to our CTO (UK) and be an active and vocal member of the Senior Leadership Team (UK). You will work closely with your leadership colleagues to deliver on cross-functional objectives that will shape the future of the business.

You will be the ‘face of development’ within the business and regularly report to the whole company on the progress your team is making. You will champion their successes and talk openly about the challenges you and your team face.

You will manage the growth of the team, identifying gaps in skills and experience and playing an active role in the recruitment of skilled new team members who fit with our company culture and beliefs.

For the right individual, this is a rare opportunity to play a crucial and defining role within an ambitious tech company, enabling us to get closer to achieving our mission, and do so in a culture that always puts people before profit and where ‘enjoying work’ is a core belief.

*We have a 35-person development team including front-end, back-end, QA, DevOps and project management.

Candidate Requirements
As our VP of Engineering you will:

- Understand the mission and objectives of the business and ensure the development team know these and are committed to them;
- Manage, coach and lead the Dev Leadership Team (Kyiv) to become a high-performing and cohesive team that always delivers on their goals;
- Identify and implement improvements in development processes to increase speed, efficiency and quality of product delivery;
- Ensure excellent communication and collaboration across the development team that leads to more efficient product delivery;
- Work with Dev Leadership and HR to boost morale, motivation and accountability across the development team;
- Work closely with Head of Product to improve communication, understanding and processes between the Product & Development teams;
- Instill an ‘outcome focused’ mindset within the development team that delivers solutions to customer problems, not just features;
- Report to the Senior Leadership Team (UK) on the performance and morale of development teams, and what challenges and opportunities need to be tackled;
- Identify and recruit top talent to fill vacant roles within the development team and ensure the team is able to help the business meet its goals;
- Identify underperforming team members and act quickly to help them improve through training, coaching, feedback, knowledge sharing and motivation;
- Work with HR to identify and deliver soft-skills training that improves morale and efficiency within the development team;

What you’ll bring to the table:

- Excellent people management and soft-skills to motivate your team;
- Proven track record in managing a large and diverse development team;
- A genuine passion for helping businesses achieve their goals and mission;
- Great communication skills (Ukrainian & English) and ability to communicate with people at all levels;
- Proven ability to increase efficiency and improve speed of development;
- Strong background in software development;
- A positive and humble attitude that makes you a great colleague and team-player;
- Lots of experience in hiring and nurturing talented developers;
- Ability to multi-task and deal with multiple challenges at the same time.

About BrightLocal:
At BrightLocal our mission is to help every marketer become brilliant at local SEO. We do this through a unique combination of powerful software, done-for-you services, and extensive knowledge sharing and training resources, including our very own BrightLocal Academy.
We believe the best way to achieve our mission is to ensure every team member is happy, passionate, motivated, and committed to helping our customers. We do this by creating the most positive work experience possible for you. You’ll get boundless opportunities to learn, develop, succeed and thrive in a culture that cherishes individuality and champions teamwork and collaboration.
We’ve been working this way for 12 years and so far it’s worked well. We’ve grown from a fledgling operation of just Myles and Ed (our two founders, who still lead the business today) to a global team of 200+ with offices in Brighton (UK), Kyiv (Ukraine) and Valencia (Philippines).
Today we serve over 15,000 customers and have consistently grown by 10% each year. You’ll get to work with businesses of all sizes from small marketing agencies, right up to big brands such as Co-op, Krispy Kreme, Halfords and IKEA.
‘Enjoying work’ is a core company belief. You’ll experience this through our flexible working options (e.g. remote, core hours), our vibrant, energising and comfortable offices and regular team events. We believe that we’re nothing without strong, personal relationships and we carefully nurture these through a range of activities that cater to the interests of our diverse team — e.g. team lunches, social nights, escape rooms, cocktail making, learning to sail, scavenger hunts, paddle boarding etc...
In 2021 we were selected as a ‘Culture Leader’ in the BreatheHR’s annual Culture Leaders Awards (we were 9th out of 150 companies and we’re aiming much higher in 2022).
You can find out more about life at BrightLocal on our ‘Working at BrightLocal’ page, and check out our reviews and photos on Glassdoor which really show you what it’s like to be a member of our team. (www.glassdoor.co.uk/...​htLocal-Jobs-E2096468.htm)
We know that our future is packed with big challenges and exciting opportunities; and we need smart, passionate and committed people like you to help us realise them!