We are looking for a passionate, intelligent Director of Engineering to join our team at a very exciting time, while we take our presence to the next level and seek to find innovative new channels to reach our readers and the members of our community.

Working closely with the CTO, the Director of Engineering will lead and mentor a team of software engineers, guide projects to completion, and take the lead in establishing and maintaining standards and best practices. The ideal candidate should be hands on, an extremely proficient software developer, an engineer at heart, but driven to annihilate social obstacles between groups and drive projects to success.

Our technology team runs a number of systems, from mobile applications to MapReduce logfile processing, all built on open-source components. We provide a fun, relaxed environment, an ideal place for developers to hone their skills and learn some new ones. We are serious about the short-term success of projects, the mid-term success of initiatives, and the long-term success of growing our people and developing our team through investment, training, and improvements to our working environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead a mature engineering group by mentoring engineers, setting good examples, building a forum for meaningful discussion, and empowering people to achieve results and excel together.
• Weigh business and technical requirements to produce project plans and estimates.

• Collaborate with product managers, designers, and QA to define project objectives, scope, and plans for building new features and products and for maintaining and evolving current ones.

• Working with team leads, drive the analysis and design of software systems; help shape system requirements, and develop analysis-level documents that reflect the requirements.

• Maintain system and design documentation, and prepare materials for project reviews.

• Actively create, refine, and evangelize processes and technical standards for the department.

• Assist in due diligence and relationship management with technology vendors

• Make recommendations to business owners and stakeholders on how to best achieve company objectives through the appropriate use of available technology.

• Stay informed and current on technology trends that could impact company objectives and profitability.

• Provide regular feedback and status to the CTO.

• Resolve issues where possible and escalate when necessary to minimize delays to the projects' stated goals.

Requirements

• Ideal candidate would be a technology generalist, able to be flexible in roles yet with an in-depth knowledge of J2EE applications used for complex problem domains.

• Full understanding of systems composed of multiple related applications, from both software and business perspectives.

• Strong track record of growing people and technology systems, and of making meaningful contributions

• Knowledge of analytics, data warehousing, email delivery systems, content management systems, and ad operations systems.

• Strong time management and multitasking skills. Ability to handle changes in business requirements and priorities across multiple projects.

• Ability to lead complex tasks, such as partitioning an application across tiers, establishing transaction boundaries, and selecting integration technologies like message passing and directory services.

• A history of leading cross-functional teams, surpassing objectives and delivering exceptional results, despite challenges.

• At least 3 years managing and leading developers.

• At least 7 years developing software in a challenging business environment.

• Strong oral and written communication skills.

• Knowledge of frontend technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) a plus.

Siobhan@obrecruitment.com