Vice President of Engineering

Job Overview

We are looking for a VP of Engineering to join our fast-growing team in SomaDetect. We are turning a significant corner as we launch AI products for Dairy farms all across North America and plan to launch globally! Here you will be working with three brilliant technical teams focusing on Embedded sensor hardware & software, the cloud infrastructure for inference and serving the UI and last but not least the data science team which builds the brain of the IoT device. The ideal candidate has been with an early product launch stage company or startup. The role requires someone who is very technically sound with good experience in scaling a data analytics product with a hardware footprint. Experience scaling and/or bringing a biomedical sensor to market would be considered a strong asset. Meticulous project planning, timeline/roadmap maintenance, and new scalable/adaptable process development skills are huge assets for the role also. 

Responsibilities and Duties

• Work with the CTO to co-develop technical strategy and directly supervise three technical managers: our Data Science / AI Team Manager, Hardware Manager, and Software Manager.

• • Design consistent KPI’s/metrics from the strategy meeting. Create a dashboard with a multi-level rollup to include annual, and quarterly goals and link it to current engineering actions and plans. Ensure it's documented, and tracked with accountability and alignment from the managers that report to you.                 
  • Develop the technical roadmap with input from the CTO and Director of Product. Maintain the road map and the dashboard to execute current and future company technical objectives. Report on the roadmap and dashboard to the CTO monthly on potential blockers. 
  • Develop and implement processes to scale the tech team. Identify and leverage external contractors where possible. Plan for headcount growth and manage hiring and recruitment of high-quality technical talent.

• Maintain a keen understanding and record of technical infrastructure (Embedded, Cloud software, and DataScience) 

• Maintain consistent adoption of agile organizations at scale, with a sense of urgency to deliver quality software to solve customer problems
• Discover and implement new technologies and tools to drive efficiency throughout the tech team.
• Product focus - Collaborate with product managers, designers, and customer success, marketing, and sales to ensure alignment of your team's work and deliverables with business objectives.
• Design a high-level summary, reports, and slides to condense engineering goals and accomplishments to the CTO and Executive team members.  
• Report on progress of the technical team to the CTO and Executive team on a monthly basis. Use problem-solving skills to remove roadblocks and drive the technical product forward.
• Accountability & Coaching - Engage with technical leaders on the team to ensure we’re pursuing technical excellence; coach them to build technology roadmaps and hold leaders accountable for hitting milestones.

Qualifications

• Basic understanding of Data Science and building models for real-world applications is a must for the role.
• 10 years of experience in leading a multi-disciplinary (software/data science/IoT) engineering team to deliver and maintain a customer-facing product or Experience scaling and/or bringing a biomedical sensor to market would be considered a strong asset
• 5-8 years of experience in software development using progressive computing languages
• Experience in a role where you're "managing managers" and have multiple leaders reporting to you and coordinating action through you.
• Deep passion for modern infrastructure/Cloud/SaaS practices is a big asset to this role.
• Experience developing and implementing processes to support the growth of a tech team towards product optimization for a global launch.
• Experience working with an engineering product requiring manufacturing is a big asset to the role.
• Experience managing a substantial budget and working on projects under constraints.
• Experience scaling a hardware technology product is a strong asset.
• Experience in dairy and/or agriculture is a strong asset.

Working Conditions

This position is a remote position and requires approximately 25% travel, nationally and internationally.  This position also involves off site visits to farms, industrial settings, supplier sites, etc. The role requires schedule flexibility, including availability some nights and weekends, to adapt to time zones & travel requirements. 

Physical Requirements

This position requires sitting and standing, sometimes for extended periods of time, for meetings or work, operating a personal computer, visually inspecting documents and forms.