Job detail for VP of Engineering

Location

This is a remote position open to residents of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, or Wisconsin.

Hello!

We are hiring a VP of Engineering at Albert. This position will be the highest leader of our 10-person engineering team. We are excited that you've found this opening and are looking forward to getting to know you.

Here is a bit more about our team:

● Team structure - We have 7x frontend engineers, 6x backend engineers, 1x infrastructure engineer, 1x QA engineer, and 1x SDET. We have a Director who handles both technical and people management for the frontend. This position would directly manage all of our backend engineers, plus our SDET and infrastructure engineers.

● Technologies - Our end-user application is built with React while our backend services are built with Elixir, Phoenix, and PostgreSQL. Our infrastructure runs on AWS and Clickhouse, among other technologies.

● Product team - We have three product managers and two full-time product designers.

● Our product and engineering teams are entirely full-time, located in the U.S. We do not work with contractors, agencies, or outsourcing firms and do not plan to.

THE ROLE

As the VP of Engineering, you will be a force-multiplier for our product and engineering organization. You will still deliver small technical projects and features, but will mostly focus on maximizing the productivity of the broader team.

You will:

● Partner with engineering and product teams to develop and maintain technical and product roadmaps with a grounding in customer value.

● Manage engineering bandwidth to ensure delivery of the product and technical roadmaps.

● Continuously improve the developer experience through improvements to internal tooling and upgrades to the tech stack that free the team from lower-level work.

● Design and implement processes and communication structures that drive velocity, quality, and accountability.

● Manage and optimize the engineering team’s budget as it relates to hiring, infrastructure costs, and tooling; advocate for the resources necessary to accomplish the team’s goals.

● Represent the engineering team in discussions with senior management and build strategic alignment across the organization.

● Occasionally contribute to implementation; conducting code reviews, fixing bugs, improving developer tools, or creating proof of concepts.

Additionally, you will develop an inclusive, productive, and supportive culture that grows the human capital on the engineering team:

● Develop a culture of learning and growth; coach and support the team; create opportunities for people to take on new challenges, remain engaged, and grow their skills.

● Reduce knowledge silos and learning curves across the stack to make the team resilient to changes, turnover, and disruptions.

● Design and implement inclusive interview processes and structures; attract and pitch exciting candidates.

● Support team experimentation and innovation with a culture of psychological safety and first-principles thinking.

● Build rapport with all team members, lead performance reviews for all engineers, calibrating compensation, recognizing contributions fairly, and developing plans for continued growth.

COMPENSATION

$180-225k + equity

WHY ALBERT?

Albert is so much more than just a job. You will do great work here, supported by incredibly talented, passionate, and kind colleagues. You'll look forward to waking up every day to help us bring better learning experiences to students worldwide. We carefully maintain our culture of openness, respectful debate, calculated risk-taking, and first-principles thinking. You'll also form lifelong friendships, collaborate with incredible managers, have a ton of fun, and pick up skills and experience that will last you a lifetime.

INCLUSION AT ALBERT

Albert is proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. As we grow, we do so with a focus on building teams representing the different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, and experiences of our customers and their communities. We also strive to create and strengthen a culture that deliberately promotes personal growth, diversity, and inclusion, especially in the unique ways that an education company can do so.

What we're looking for

● You have 5+ years of full-stack experience building, architecting, and deploying web applications. You can mentor others, provide technical leadership across the stack (but no prior knowledge of Elixir is required), and can get your hands dirty when needed.

● You’ve led engineering teams for at least two years. You’ve built teams, made mistakes, experienced the burdens of leadership, and are excited to do it again. You know how to get the most out of people and are the kind of manager people get excited to work with.

● You are an empathetic, effective communicator with high levels of emotional intelligence. You enjoy building alignment around decisions between and within technical and business stakeholders. You don’t avoid conflict and can have tough conversations that leave people feeling inspired. You're a servant leader, a person who seeks to protect the team and take ownership over its performance.

● You are a pragmatic product thinker. You are able to identify what will be most impactful for users within the broader business context. You can clearly articulate the tradeoffs between short-term and long-term solutions and form plans around them.

● You don’t get overwhelmed easily, can juggle multiple projects, and effectively prioritize. You are biased toward action and see things through.

● You're ambitious. You don't seek comfort in routine and not only embrace change, but look to make changes that move the team forward.

● You're excited about Albert's product and finding ways to deliver more value, faster, to tens of thousands of teachers nationwide.

What we offer

• Health, dental, and vision insurance. We offer two medical plans, both through Cigna. The company’s contribution is set at the Base Plan: Albert covers 100% of the employee-only premium and 50% of the dependent premium for the Cigna OAP PPO Base Plan. If you elect the Buy-Up Plan, Albert contributes the same dollar amount it would have contributed toward the Base Plan and you pay the difference. Dental and vision are also through Cigna, with Albert covering 90% of the employee premium and 50% of the dependent premium.
• Insurance concierge through Nava. Our insurance broker, Nava, will help you file claims, find doctors, and answer coverage questions.
• Flexible Spending Account and Dependent Care FSA. Set aside pre-tax dollars for medical and dependent care costs.
• One Medical membership. Same-day appointments, virtual care, and a real primary care relationship.
• Paid parental leave. Twelve weeks of fully paid leave after one year of service.
• 401(k). A fully managed plan with a 1% company match.
• Flexible, guilt-free vacation. No fixed allotment and no approval theater. Most people take three to four weeks a year, and we mean it.
• Half-day Fridays. Every week, year round.
• A deep-work culture. Few meetings and long uninterrupted blocks, because the work we do rewards focus.
• Pay that does not depend on your zip code. The same bands apply wherever you live, with raises tied to performance rather than tenure.

About Albert

Since 2014, Albert has been powering feedback loops for students and teachers to improve educational outcomes. We do this by providing students with engaging, thought-provoking questions and feedback, and teachers with actionable data and flexible instructional tools. We believe we can make the biggest impact by working through teachers, equipping them with the highest quality practice and assessment content possible.

We don't stop at creating a great product. We also obsess about providing delightful support, delivering impactful teacher training, and forging long-term relationships with our school partners. All of this starts with our culture: we stress freedom of opinion, think long-term, and empower people with autonomy and responsibility.