Position: Head of Engineering
Company: Make it in Ukraine
Category: Lead
Experience required: 5y
English level: upper
Published: 2020-10-01T00:00:00+03:00

**About you:**
Beyond the technical skills listed below, you must be someone looking for something meaningful in the next 5 years of your life. You should have a desire to see your work make an impact in moving humanity forward. At the same time, you should be eager to explore applying software technology to a foundational industry which is huge but technologically laggard, with the hope of changing it forever. Your expertise in bringing cutting-edge approaches to the table will be valued. You will probably need to deep dive into the field of machine learning-driven software engineering, guided by the Founders and Advisors that have strong knowledge of both these areas.

**Your strengths/capabilities:**
You are a really good engineer. Your fundamental knowledge is strong. You enjoy solution design, and are adept at translating architectural visions into working, high-quality software. You can easily spot good code from bad, and don’t trade your principles away easily. You have exposure to: 
- Different programming paradigms and software design and architecture approaches with a focus on functional and Object Oriented programming.
- Common design patterns, data structures and algorithms.
- A variety of language ecosystems, including but not limited to, Python, JS/TypeScript/ECMAscript and PHP. 
- A variety of database technologies SQL & NoSQL.
- A variety of application servers like Nginx, Apache, Node.js etc.
- Multiple cloud vendors and their services (AWS, Azure and GCP)
- Kubernetes.
- CI-CD and other DevOps processes.
It's good to have exposure to:
- Mobile software development ecosystems like Android, iOS, Hybrid etc. 
- ML stacks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn etc.
- ML algorithms like SVMs, Tree based algorithms, Neural Networks etc.
- System security principles and secure development practices.

- Your exposure includes domains and approaches that are business-critical for us. We foresee a central role for machine learning, process automation, big data, and multi-tenancy in our business plans. Ideally, you have worked with most or all of these concerns. Your deep knowledge of the various design patterns, techniques, libraries, resources, and tooling, allows you to make well-informed decisions. We also believe in a problem-led, iterative, product-centric approach. Ideally, you have spent your career working on empowered, cross-functional product teams, and intimately understand the model of collaboration involved.
- You have walked the scale-up phase of the growth journey. You can foresee the challenges that typically accompany business growth. You are well-versed in strategies and approaches that prepare a system for eventual scaling needs. You understand the importance of issues such as latency, quality, reliability, security, observability, modularity, high availability, and know how to ensure these are accounted for when implementing software.
- You value best practices and are intentional in what you do. You constantly stay up-to-date on evolutions in concepts, approaches, methods, systems/tooling, processes, etc. in your field. You are deliberate in fitting these solutions to the problems that your team/organisation is facing. As a matter of habit, you conscientiously measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your choices.
- You enjoy growing people and building teams. You know what defines a top-grade engineer and you know the pathways to get there. You are able to use day-to-day tasks and interactions as occasions to mentor and develop high-value skills. You can spot and assess opportunities for learning and personal development. You get team dynamics and want to create an environment where people learn from one another, continually push the boundaries, and enjoy coming to work.

**Who will you work with?**
You are the first real permanent member in the software engineering team and will lead it. You will report to the Founder and Advisors, and work closely with the Chief Products Officer on product strategy and implementation.

In the first couple of years, a fully-fledged product team will be built around you, with additional engineers reporting to you, a product owner to set product direction, and contributors from UI/UX, data science, operations, etc. as needed.

**The next 5 years:**
The founding team is still evaluating various possible strategic directions (and would love any input you have!) Once strategic clarity is established, we will undertake a series of technology proof-of-concept projects based on use cases that have been validated, before moving on to the long-term foundations of our platform. Fundamentally, we intend to re-build the electricity retailer in the first 18-24 months, using a “99.9% digital” paradigm.

Subsequently, we will experiment with the real game changers in a new world empowered by the internet-of-things, further renewables penetration, and advancements in multiple intersecting industries, especially electric vehicles (EV) usage. That’s where the fun is. 

**What you will do:**
You are engineer number 1, hired to build a software engineering function in your image. You report to the founding CTO, and work closely with the CPO and CEO on product strategy and implementation. Over the first couple of years, a fully-fledged product team will be formed, with engineers, a product owner, and contributors e.g. UI/UX, DS, ops, etc. as needed.


Your specific responsibilities for the first 18 months are likely to include:
   Building your team
- Setting up the dev environment (processes + tools + internal systems), i.e. setting standards and best practices for dev ops, testing, monitoring, etc.
- Devising a style guide/design patterns, standards for code evaluation, etc.
- Working with product to develop and refine a project management/delivery model, and to implement and iterate on the daily processes that serve this model
- Defining a competency model for engineers
- Assessing hiring needs for engineering, then planning and executing a hiring plan
- Growing your engineers (and measuring that growth)
- Taking the engineering function’s seat at the table, ensuring representation in all strategic contexts (e.g. roadmap prioritisation, budgeting, collaboration models)

  Building the product
- Designing the platform’s foundational architecture according to attribute-based priorities provided by the product/business, including the selection of languages, frameworks, libraries, etc.
- Executing high-level prototypes to establish the viability and value of selected high-importance interventions/concepts
- Managing and supervising the design and implementation of all product features
- Ensuring quality of code, of system, and of all technical aspects of the product
- Contributing to strategic decisions (e.g. buy-build) by performing the relevant system analysis, evaluations, design/planning, etc.
After the first 18 months, the intention is to do more of the first list and less of the second. You should bear this in mind from day one.

**Where will you be based?**
You can be based at a location of your preference and convenience for the next 24 months as the company has agreed to work remotely due to COVID situation. 

**Assessment process:**
- Paper submission may include a CV, a portfolio of past work, links to a working product you helped build, etc.
- A technical assessment round (multiple interviews) will include a case study which is not based on the product we want to build, but which focuses on the competencies outlined above
- A final assessment with the Founder on business side to assess fit with personal ambitions
- References to include someone who directly managed you, and someone whom you managed or mentored. 

**About the start-up:**
We are currently in stealth mode. The start-up shall operate in the energy sector to push humanity towards a zero carbon world by advancing green electricity consumption and zero emissions mobility. The vision of the start-up is to supply as much green electricity as possible at near zero prices, so that the majority of humankind can affordably enjoy abundant energy - including for transport - without the environmental, ethical, and geopolitical challenges of today.

The start-up envisions leveraging new-age software engineering, product design, and artificial intelligence approaches to achieve its aims. It needs to solve several currently unknown and first-of-its-kind problems in the electricity ecosystem, and the core team believes these are solvable using a software-first, energy-second approach. The energy industry is traditionally a laggard in technology adoption, and hence continues to under-fulfil its potential in climate change mitigation, and this must not be the case in 2030. We are betting on being the first truly software-centric energy supply company to achieve this, thus setting a benchmark for global industry to follow.

**About the people:**
The start-up is founded by entrepreneurs in their mid-30s with strong energy and software industry resumes. Some of the Founders are Indian nationals. The founding team previously worked together to build enterprise machine learning SaaS ventures in the climate change and renewable energy industry, both now acquired by larger companies. The pedigree of the Founders and Advisors is from University of Cambridge, Imperial College and University of Oxford besides top Indian engineering schools.