Head of Product Engineering
California, MO, United States
Role overview:
As the Head of Product Engineering, you will lead one of the crucial teams that ultimately determines our success or failure. Our product's innovativeness and quality, as well as our engineering execution, play a big part in whether we become the indisputably best way to work remotely.
There are several challenges that make product engineering at Gather uniquely tough yet rewarding. For example, the design challenge of “how do you replicate a real-life office in a virtual world” requires engineers to prototype extremely quickly and draw on the best ideas from game design to social apps to VR, if not invent new UX paradigms altogether.
On the other hand, using virtual worlds for work for 8 hours a day is a foreign concept to our users, so shipping with a high degree of quality is important to make users feel delighted and understood, not confused. Often, we need to go the extra mile on polish (or game feel ) to make the experience work.
As the leader of the team, you will be responsible for hiring outstanding talent and managing the team against a high bar for craft, quality, and pace. We are looking for leaders with a high degree of craft in product engineering themselves and are unafraid—in fact, eager—to get into the details.
Where you will make an impact:
Hire outlier talent, whether high-potential engineers at the start of their careers or seasoned engineers at the top of their craft
Manage and mentor an extremely hungry and talent-dense engineering team and inspire them to do their best work
Guide your team to make high-quality technical decisions
Work with our largest engineering team to develop the core user-facing experience of Gather
Work closely with product and design to shape large parts of the company’s strategy and direction
Hold a high bar on the urgency and pace of the team, the polish in the product experience, and the quality of our software
Identify opportunities in the development process or technical bottlenecks to make the team more efficient
Build a culture with high agency, accountability, and camaraderie
What you bring:
3+ years of management experience
High technical proficiency in front-end, back-end, or full-stack engineering
Willingness to get into the details, including coding yourself
A keen intuition for well-designed software and beautiful, usable interfaces
Strong product sense and ability to ruthlessly prioritize in a chaotic and ambiguous environment
Ability to manage and prioritize across multiple projects and timelines
A strong belief in high engineering agency, responsibility, and accountability
A compassionate but clear and focused approach to leadership and management
Intrinsic motivation and the drive to solve difficult problems without guidance
An open and growth mindset when giving and receiving feedback
You are resourceful, have a bias towards action, and love moving fast
You enjoy spending time understanding customers and are adept at getting to the root problems that your product is uniquely positioned to solve
US Salary Range
At Gather, compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $215,000 - $265,000 annually and we encourage candidates outside of this salary range to apply.
Base pay is one part of the total package provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role will be eligible for a stock reward reflective of an early-stage startup.
Benefits
Work remotely out of a state-of-the-art virtual office!
Competitive compensation, benefits, and meaningful equity
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their dependents
401k and matching program
Generous PTO policy and mental health days to recharge
Meal stipend twice a week to keep you nourished
Remote work, education, and health & wellness stipend
Support for family planning & gender-affirmation
The opportunity to join a passionate team in building something that actually makes peoples' lives better, every single day
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