[Hiring] Engineering Delivery Lead @Spatial DNA

Role Description

Help us build better products and deliver what we promise. Spatial DNA connects GIS, asset management, ERP and finance systems for municipalities, utilities and other infrastructure organizations. We automate the work between systems so people can spend less time checking data and more time serving their communities.

We’re looking for an Engineering Delivery Lead to bring our product development and customer delivery work together. You’ll help the team decide what needs to be done, plan the work, and see it through to a working solution.

A key part of your first six months will be putting our Engineering Delivery System into practice. This is how we take an idea or customer need through design, development, testing, release and support. Some of these practices are already in place. You’ll connect them, fill the gaps and make them useful in our daily work.

You’ll work closely with our CEO, product engineers and integration team. This is a hands-on role with no direct reports initially. You’ll lead by helping people work through problems, making decisions clear and following through.

Responsibilities

• Bring product and project work together
• Build a shared way of working for product development and customer projects
• Make it clear who owns each piece of work, what needs to happen next and how we know it is finished
• Keep plans, priorities and progress current in ClickUp, with links to the code, tests and documents the team needs
• Put useful practices in place for estimates, design reviews, testing, releases and handoffs
• Help the team learn from each project and release, then use that learning to improve how we work
• Manage the product development process
• Work with the CEO and engineers to turn product priorities into a clear development plan
• Break larger ideas into smaller pieces that we can build, test and learn from
• Manage the product backlog so the team understands what matters most and why
• Plan time for customer work, product improvements, maintenance and security
• Look for customer needs that we can solve once and reuse
• Make sure new features are tested, documented and ready for the people who will use and support them
• Keep customer delivery moving
• Work with customers to understand the problem, what they need and what will make the project successful
• Test important assumptions early with a small working version
• Coordinate development, testing, deployment and training
• Agree with the customer on what they will review and approve
• Make sure the solution works as agreed and that someone is ready to support it
• Bring useful ideas and components from customer projects back into the product
• Help the team make and keep realistic commitments
• Plan work around the time and skills we have available
• Keep priorities, responsibilities and deadlines clear
• Find work that is stuck and help resolve the problem
• Raise risks early, while there is still time to do something about them
• Keep customers and colleagues informed through short updates and working demonstrations
• Track where our estimates and plans need to improve
• Keep project notes and time records current, including the technical records needed for SR&ED

Expectations

• Our combined product and project Engineering Delivery System is in use
• The team knows how work moves from an idea or customer request through design, development, testing, release and support
• You’ve used the system for both customer delivery and product development, and improved it based on what the team learned
• You’ve helped deliver at least one customer project from an early working version through to customer approval and production use
• The product backlog is up to date, priorities are clear, and the team has a regular release schedule
• We know which parts of a solution belong in the shared product, which are settings and which are specific to a customer
• Plans reflect the team’s capacity. Problems are raised early, and people can see what is working and what still needs attention
• We have a useful set of starting measures to help us improve delivery, quality, and reuse

Qualifications

• Experience managing software product development and customer projects
• The ability to turn a broad idea into smaller pieces of work with clear priorities
• Experience helping teams improve how they design, build, test, release and support software
• Enough technical knowledge to work through integration problems, contribute to early prototypes and discuss design choices with developers
• Good judgment about balancing customer deadlines with product improvements and maintenance
• Clear writing and the ability to explain technical issues in plain language
• A habit of keeping decisions, plans and commitments current
• The confidence to raise difficult issues, listen when challenged and help the team move forward