Director of Engineering

Your impact

As our first VP of Engineering, you will be instrumental in scaling our R&D organization, enhancing our engineering practices, and directly contributing to Optiwatt's rapid growth. You will lead and mentor our talented team of 11 IC engineers and 2 engineering managers, fostering a high-performance culture that delivers innovative, scalable products to achieve our ambitious business goals and decarbonization mission. Your leadership will directly impact our product roadmap, operational efficiency, and the overall health and productivity of our engineering function.

As the VP of Engineering, you must be located in the Bay Area and be willing to work from our Walnut Creek office 3 days a week in person with the CEO.

Here’s some exciting stuff you will do :

Define and Optimize R&D Metrics : Establish and implement a robust system to measure and report on R&D productivity and system health, ensuring clear visibility into our performance.

Drive Engineering Productivity : Lead initiatives to increase the productivity of the R&D team by streamlining processes and optimizing workflows.

Define Platform Strategy : Define and implement the technical strategy for building and scaling our platform, ensuring it supports current and future product needs and business growth.

Champion AI Integration : Develop and execute a comprehensive AI strategy aimed at automating a significant percentage of testing and development work within your first year.

Strategic Product Partnership : Collaborate closely with business stakeholders to shape the product roadmap, aligning engineering efforts with company objectives to drive ARR growth

About You

You are someone who is….

A Results-Driven Engineering Leader : Possess deep knowledge and extensive experience within high-performing engineering environments. You instinctively know what "good looks like" and have a proven track record of successfully building and scaling engineering teams of 20+ individuals, developing multiple engineers into high performers. You are decisive in addressing performance gaps, knowing when to coach, performance manage, or make difficult personnel changes.

A Business-Oriented Technologist : A true thought partner to the business team, you have a solid understanding of business objectives and can seamlessly translate them into product roadmaps, epics, and engineering tickets. You excel at cross-functional collaboration with Product, Sales, Client Success, and Finance. You are adept at negotiating with business stakeholders to balance the development of scalable products with immediate business needs, always finding the right balance between new feature development and managing technical debt.

A Startup Operator : Capable of getting things done in days / weeks, not months / quarters. You possess a strong understanding of relevant agile practices (sprint planning, stand-ups, retrospectives) and modern DevOps principles (CI / CD, release management, cloud-native architecture, automation, DORA metrics). You are skilled at right-sizing these practices for a Series A / B startup environment and have experience building products for both B2C and B2B markets.

A Strong Leader & Culture Builder : You are highly respected by your team, who are eager to learn and grow under your guidance. You are adept at building a positive and engaging engineering culture that keeps the team motivated, happy, and committed to Optiwatt's mission.

A Master of Structured Planning & Delivery : You are highly skilled at developing structured plans, executing against them with precision, and reporting on progress in a clear and concise manner. You proactively identify and remove blockers to ensure the team remains on track and delivers consistently.

Benefits - Grow with us

We are ramping up for our Series B and have investors from the most reputable names in venture capital and impact investing : Google Ventures, Navitas Capital, Urban Innovation Fund, and Active Impact Investments. If you're interested in growth potential, the sky's the limit here at Optiwatt.

We invest in your growth because we know that even if you aren’t with us forever, empowering you to better tackle climate change helps all of us. The best part of working in the clean technology industry is the enormous collaboration between companies, founders, investors, and yes, even utilities. Everyone is driven by the same goal : reduce global warming and move us towards a truly sustainable future.

We encourage you to step outside of your role and show us what you can do. Ask for opportunity and you will receive it, offer up ideas and you will be heard. We desire to match people with work that excites them the most, and we will support you in your journey to learn and grow towards accomplishing that goal.

Shine with us

Optiwatt is a small startup, but don’t let that fool you. We offer competitive salaries and benefits to all employees, rivaling the giants of the tech world. Some of these amazing perks include :

Ability to work hybrid (can work from home 2 days per week)

Healthcare, vision, and dental

$1,500 annual health & wellness purchase match

401k contribution and matching - 50% match up to 6% of base salary

Flex Fridays every other Friday

Flexible time off policy (no cap on days off as long as required work gets completed)

Yearly company retreats

Flexible work hours, and we mean it. We want you to work when you are most productive, no matter if you are a night owl, early bird, or live in a different US time zone.

Expensed home office supplies, work travel, team entertainment, etc. as necessary

Are you located in the Bay Area and willing to commute to our Walnut Creek office 3x per week?

Have you spent 5+ years at a high growth startup below 300 employees?

Do you have experience building tech for both B2C and B2B?

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