Head of Engineering

About Visibly

Education for deskless workers worldwide faces two critical challenges: entire industries still rely on spreadsheets to track knowledge and skill gaps, while outdated, mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations remain the go-to method for training.

While this situation is far from ideal, it presents a unique opportunity to reimagine education from the ground up for over a billion deskless workers - and that's where you come in!

You'll play a pivotal role in the evolution of Visibly, guiding and leveling up our engineering organization by leveraging both your extensive hands-on technical expertise and your engineering leadership experience.

In early 2024, we raised one of Europe's strongest seed rounds from tier 1 investors including Creandum and Seedcamp. Our highest priority is building a team that pushes each of us to do our very best work and cares intensely about delivering value to customers.

How you'll make an impact

• You'll manage a compact team of engineers, guiding, coaching, unblocking, and mentoring them, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.
• You'll get stuck in with the technical design, development, and implementation of solutions across both frontend and backend.
• You'll own the engineering roadmap, working closely with product and leadership teams to prioritize and execute key initiatives, while pragmatically balancing speed with quality to ensure timely, high-impact delivery.
• Ensure developers are clear on what they are technically delivering, working with them to break down tasks and tickets into clear, actionable technical deliverables.
• You will effectively communicate both the wins and challenges the engineering team faces, ensuring transparency and alignment with the company and stakeholders to drive informed decision-making and foster collaboration.
• Promote and drive continuous improvements in engineering processes and practices, including code quality, performance, observability, automated testing, security, and CI/CD.
• Drive hiring and scaling efforts as the team grows.

What we'd love to see

• Experienced: You have demonstrable experience as a Lead Developer or Technical Lead, with a proven track record of guiding and mentoring an engineering team, coupled with significant hands-on technical experience in a cloud-native environment.
• Full-Stack proficiency: Comfortable working across both the frontend and backend, with experience using Javascript (ideally Typescript) frameworks and libraries across both the frontend and backend, such as Node.js, ReactJS, and Next.js. This includes experience building APIs, working with microservices, and translating product requirements into robust technical solutions. Bonus points for any C# or Flutter experience.
• Leadership: Strong ability to support, coach, and mentor your team, fostering their growth and development, while providing guidance to overcome challenges and unblock them when they get stuck.
• Cloud-native: Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes). You've led efforts to design and scale cloud-native architectures and have experience with serverless technologies such as Lambda functions. You know how to balance technical trade-offs while keeping business goals in focus.
• Business impact: As a senior member of an early-stage startup, you're excited by the opportunity to leverage your technical leadership to positively impact the business. You understand how engineering decisions influence broader company goals and are motivated to drive technical and strategic success.
• Excellence: Demonstrable experience writing clean, performant, and well-tested code while ensuring your team follows suit. You lead by example in code quality, encouraging and upholding best practices across the team while delivering high-impact features.
• Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills, focusing on collaboration. You are adept at working closely with product management to convert requirements into clear, actionable technical deliverables. You excel at bridging the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders, fostering a positive and inclusive dialogue that drives cross-functional alignment.
• Best practices: A strong understanding of modern, empowered software development processes and best practices, including experience working in a modern Agile Scrum environment. You've led teams through iterative development cycles, ensuring high performance, accountability, and collaboration while driving the delivery of both the technical roadmap and key features in an agile, efficient manner.
• Tech enthusiasm: A curious mindset with a genuine passion for technology. You are always eager to explore the latest advancements and enjoy integrating new ideas to drive innovation within your team. You inspire your team to stay ahead of the curve, balancing innovation with effective execution.
• Problem-solving: Comfortable working in a dynamic environment with a small team, where complexity, unknowns, and ambiguity are part of the journey. You enjoy collaborative problem-solving, approaching challenges with curiosity and a can-do attitude, asking "What's possible?"

Valued behaviours

• Customer obsession: We start with what's best for the customer and make it a reality.
• Ambition: We believe in moving fast, delivering excellence, and we inspire others to raise the bar.
• Integrity: We act with good intent, speak plainly and respectfully.
• Courage: We are open to failure, make tough decisions and challenge directly.
• Humility: We're self-aware, never done learning and ensure the best idea wins.

Why us?

• A strong salary regardless of location (£100-120k), company ownership through our stock option plan and competitive benefits package.
• Medical insurance includes health assessment, online GP, Headspace subscription, discounts on gym membership, wearables, and cinema tickets.
• £1,000 learning and development budget plus 5 days leave for courses or conferences and clear career development.
• 35 days leave per year, quarterly team off-sites, enhanced parental leave.
• The equipment you need to work your best, at the office or from home.
• Opportunity to build from the ground up a mission-driven company empowering and enhancing the prospects of billions of deskless workers in Europe. Working closely with a grounded, humble team and investors who previously backed Spotify, iZettle, Revolut, Klarna, Wise to name a few, in their earliest stages.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace

We are an equal opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognising that diversity of thought and background builds more substantial teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.