VP Engineering

at  SafeGlobal

ABOUT SAFE:

Safe is the account abstraction leader on Ethereum and the EVM with the most secure smart wallet infrastructure and platform. Our mission is to accelerate the transition to smart accounts. For more information about Safe, check out our website.
You’ll be joining a growing team that currently includes 70+ people overall. This role is based in Berlin . Most of our team is based in Berlin but we also have awesome teammates in Switzerland , Spain , Portugal , and other countries.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• At least 5 years of experience leading technical projects and agile engineering teams
• Experience architecting scalable systems
• Can transition systems through the different life cycles (simple low throughput service to complex highly scalable system)
• Excellent software engineering skills overall.
• Experience in continuous development processes (CI/CD) across multiple teams
• Expert knowledge in one relevant tech area
• DevOps
• Backend Development with Python/ Django or Typescript
• Client development with Typescript, Kotlin or Swift
• SDK development
• [Strong knowledge of other tech stacks not mentioned above will also be favourable]
• Has the ability to apply existing knowledge to new challenges
• Can understand proposed solutions in a programming language they are not familiar with based on past knowledge of other programming languages

LEADERSHIP SKILLS

• Must have experience leading and coordinating multiple engineering teams
• Experience holding leadership/mentoring responsibilities within a startup or bigger organization
• Empowers the team and doesn’t present themselves as a bottleneck
• Has interviewed and hired a team: knows how to evaluate others
• Knowledge of Agile, Lean and Scrum across Agile Release Trains
• Familiarity with SAFE (the framework) to help foster communication and collaboration across tech and non-Tech Teams
• Has experience with performance evaluation and goal-setting process
• Must be able to outline how to use OKRs or similar frameworks
• Can identify where employees can develop (e.g. identify shortcomings)
• Deep understanding of product development processes

ABOUT THE ROLE:

As the VP of Engineering at Safe, you will be the overall project-wide lead that coordinates all the technical leads in each of Safe’s sub-teams (across both {Wallet} and {Core}). This is a strategically critical role as we continue to scale our tech operations - we have a highly motivated team with a huge amount of potential. This role will be pivotal in tapping into that.
Many high-value Safes are managed via Safe{Wallet}, giving you the opportunity to work on a project that is actually used by teams and individuals managing digital assets that have real value. As VP of Engineering for Safe{Wallet}, you will significantly influence the future of the entire Safe project.
The Safe{Core} Protocol introduces an open-source interoperability protocol for modular smart contract-based accounts (“smart accounts”). It addresses challenges in the smart account ecosystem such as fragmentation, vendor lock-in, and security risks.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING:

• Lead engineering managers and technical leads
• {Wallet} Engineering Manager and {Core} Engineering Manager
• Protocol Lead, Network Abstraction Lead, Data Lead, DevEx Lead, Backend Lead
• Advise and lead in case we create new teams (eg. mobile or another web or protocol team)
• Ensure quality, scalability, security of what we build
• Accountable for crisis response management on tech side
• Evaluate with the team how to scale up
• Provide in-depth feedback on strategy, roadmap and other project-wide topics
• Offer ideas wherever suitable
• Feedback on the “what”, own/drive the “how”
• Work together with our COO to ensure that the engineering teams are effective
• Optimize coordination between different internal teams
• Ensure knowledge sharing between different engineering teams
• Coordinate budget ownership between finance and tech leads
• Coordinate with technical external partners where necessary.
• Ensure that proper processes are established (Boards, issues, requirements, plans, tools, estimations)
• Ensure that people are held accountable inside the team and also towards people outside the team. And vice-versa.
• Ensure pragmatic and up-to-date documentation (as much as necessary, as little as possible)

WHO WOULD DO WELL IN THIS ROLE?

• A leader who can delegate; knowing what to take on themselves and what to pass forward
• Someone comfortable challenging the decisions of everyone (leadership and other devs)
• An individual not afraid to speak up and not afraid to be wrong
• A leader who identifies and directs the team towards areas for improvement (both technical aspects as well as topics related to processes, collaboration and team structure)
• Someone who finds reasonable trade-offs between perfectionism and robustness and does not wait for others to find solutions to problems