[Hiring] Head of Engineering @WunderGraph, Inc.

Role Description

You are an amalgamation of a jack-of-all-trades developer, customer champion, architect and solution designer. Theoretically, you could build it all yourself, but why should you when you have an awesome team with great talent to lead and develop, and that you can help to win? So the challenge you’re deftly solving is to prep the grounds for your engineers to thrive and ship in insane mode, whilst being at the sidelines to guide everyone and foster ideas, or at the forefront to solve problems and trailblaze ahead. In order to do so, you must have a deep understanding of technology and customer needs whilst wearing an entrepreneur’s hat. Ultimately, you’re responsible for the success of the Engineering team and the robustness / security of our solutions, contributing a significant part to the success of the whole company.

In this role, you need to be a hustler as well as a problem-solver and exceptional leader. Prowess in many technologies is mandatory, as is your willingness to dig in and get your hands dirty up to the elbows (at least spending 30 - 40% of your time coding) - there are no pure managerial roles at WunderGraph, and you need to be fully involved if you want to be able to help others grow. You cannot afford any lofty leader attitude - in a start-up, you must be in the trenches with the team and make sure that you and your team ship fast, ship often, and ship true. You don’t need any hand holding for that.

Working with your engineers, you are responsible for the development of every single team member, including hiring new staff. Everyone is important, nobody gets left behind, and it’s your duty to help them get better at their job every day. At the same time, you need to decide on the right leadership style, which means you know when to mentor and when to apply a more directive approach, whilst always being respectful and appreciative of one’s actions. If things do not work out, you also make the call to let go of people who are not a fit.

Tl;dr: you set the posture for engineers who will join us in the future, and thus you must represent the company’s ideals, goals, and leadership style. In parallel, you’re expected to really move the company forward and make a difference so everybody wins - team, customer, company, and you.

Team Integration

• You report to the CEO.
• You align with the CEO (on product in his role as CPO), the Head of Customer Success (on customer feedback) and the CISO (on information security).

Role Objectives

• Constantly meet our SLA, security, privacy and compliance commitments.
• Ensure highest impact of our engineering resources through guidance and training.
• Fully leverage AI for maximum engineering speed and automation.
• Identify technical game-changers for growth and efficiency.

Role Tasks

• Software development in various languages (primarily Go, NextJS, Typescript).
• Key architectural decisions to maintain a coherent architecture.
• Define staffing requirements and hire team members.
• Identify, manage and minimize risks driven by technology (together with CISO), especially regarding information security and privacy.
• Technical ownership and management of all products.
• Enforce, maintain and evolve our standards throughout the SDLC, e.g. for coding, testing and security.
• Creation of PoCs / experiments to try out potential solutions.
• Sales / technical meetings with customers.
• Managing external suppliers and vendors, decision on which tools and technologies to use.
• Managing cost for our environments and tools, keeping things as lean as possible.
• Manage, train and guide engineers.
• Foster AI adoption.
• Prepare and support security audits together with the CISO.

Role Requirements

• Profound experience in various programming languages and styles, ideally in TypeScript and Go, covering the entire stack. GraphQL knowledge would be a bonus.
• Proven track record of building full solutions (vs. parts), ideally in the SaaS space.
• Proven track record of working with customers to build / improve a product.
• Multiple years of leadership experience.
• Avid problem solver, pragmatic and hands-on.
• Experience with API Gateways, Proxies, and Networking in general is a plus, as well as OpenAPI, SOAP, gRPC.
• Excellent communication skills in English.
• Self-starter with a clear sense of priorities - no hand-holding needed.
• Focus on getting things done (we’re still a start-up after all).
• Passionate about building something the world has never seen together with a small, nimble and badass team.
• You’re able to thrive in a 100% remote environment and enjoy working with a global team.

Benefits

• Work from wherever you thrive—we’re fully remote and globally distributed.
• Pick your preferred work hardware.
• We focus on getting stuff done, and on having fun whilst doing so: work hard, play hard!
• You can make a real difference and find lots of opportunities to grow together with us.
• Discretionary PTO: take the time you need to recharge.
• Competitive compensation.
• Depending on location, we offer healthcare benefits according to local standards.
• Team retreats across the globe.

The Process

We respect your time and interest in WunderGraph. This is why we're aiming to make the process as fast as possible. Our process also includes reference and background checks. We aim to respond or provide feedback in 2 or 3 days between each stage of the process. We're usually hiring through Deel as our Employer of Record, except for Germany or Florida where we're hiring directly.

WunderGraph is an equal opportunity workplace; we welcome people from all backgrounds.

You can find out more about our ways of working together here: WunderGraph Public Handbook and Resources. We’re looking forward to your application so we can grow together!