Polarsteps

Head of Engineering

Polarsteps

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Hybrid

Location: Amsterdam • Netherlands

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Job Level

Lead

Tech Stack

AWSCloudPython

About the role

  • Drive high performance: You'll be pivotal in guiding our tech leads and team members’ personal development, fostering tight-knit collaboration while constantly improving our workflow and processes. Your goal is to ensure our team is happy and productive, operating like a well-oiled machine with a keen focus on efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Get Things Done: You're in charge of making sure initiatives start, and also cross the finish line. You can easily juggle priorities, resources and deadlines - making hard choices is second nature to you.
  • Lead the evolution of our platform: You’ll lead the team through the big calls on tech and architecture. The decisions you’ll make together will keep our platform robust and ready for the future, as you proactively cultivate the resiliency, maintainability, scalability and general operational excellence of every corner of our platform, addressing technical debt when needed or, even better, preventing it when it makes sense.
  • Innovate and Elevate: We're looking for someone who’s always on the lookout for new tech trends and ways to do things better; and more importantly, is able to identify which of those should *not* be adopted.
  • AI-pilled, but responsibly: you understand the potential and current power of AI-driven development, and at the same time you’re aware of the best way to leverage it to manage its limitations and risks.
  • Care deeply about the people in your team, and the success of Polarsteps; you’ll be able to balance being a candid, caring, supportive and empathetic manager with making tough decisions when needed to support the growth of the business.

Requirements

  • A track record of leading and growing engineering teams in startups or scale-ups, leading multiple different teams at once.
  • Experience in startups/scaleups or small, flexible environments, in a European environment.
  • A serious passion for crafting great software and keeping up with best practices in engineering.
  • A product-first mindset.
  • You’ve gone through both love and hate for Agile: Scrum, Kanban and the rest of the bunch. And as a result you’ve learned which are the key elements to ship value to users as fast as possible, while continuing to build a strong enough platform foundation.
  • Passion for **travel**.
  • Scaled teams of ~40 engineers to 60 and beyond.
  • Been in the trenches of a successful B2C app-based product.
  • Deep technical expertise in backend systems, ideally in Python (FastAPI) and hosted in the cloud, ideally AWS.
  • Scaling ever-growing high-demand APIs and systems exposed to mobile clients? You’ve been there, done that.
  • True understanding of business metrics and how technology impacts the bottom line. Experience in and desire for aligning technical projects with business goals.
  • International exposure – have you worked in or managed teams across different cultures? That’s what awaits you here.
Benefits
  • A yearly free flight or train ride to a random location! Give our Teleporter a spin here.
  • Any hardware that helps your daily routine.
  • Hybrid working. Split your time between the office and your home as you see fit.
  • 30 days of vacation *(for adventures or sitting on the couch, it's up to you).*
  • Two paid Culture Days for days that are important to you but not recognized by the official Dutch calendar.
  • The option to switch up your zoom background by working from another country for up to 8 weeks a year.
  • A personal development budget for that curious mind of yours!
  • A pension plan to help you save for those around-the-world retirement trips.
  • Delicious daily team lunches.
  • Awesome monthly parties, as well as team trips away.
  • A lively office in downtown Amsterdam, with travel costs reimbursed.
  • Free Polarsteps Travel Books to contain all your far-flung adventures.

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard skills
PythonFastAPIcloud computingAPI developmentAgileScrumKanbansoftware engineering best practicestechnical debt managementscalability
Soft skills
leadershipcollaborationcommunicationempathydecision makingprioritizationsupportivenessadaptabilityteam developmentproduct mindset