VP of Engineering

Tumelo; Bristol; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000

Job description

VP of Engineering

Job Title: VP of Engineering

Salary: This is a unique role, we're open to discussions around base salary + stock options

Start date: ASAP

Location: Bristol / South West (Hybrid). We are ideally looking for someone to spend 2-3+ days in our Bristol office. At the moment we are only able to accept candidates based in the UK.

Who are we?

Tumelo is a venture-backed, impact-led financial technology firm. We believe every investor should be empowered to use their shareholder voice to create change on issues like climate, gender and human rights at companies where their money is invested. Our mission is to build and scale the technology to make that possible.

We're a close-knit, fun and dynamic team. We champion autonomy and flexibility. We get stuck in and act strategically. We love food, rounders, board games... and having fun together, from canvas painting to our annual company offsite.

We aim to enable every institutional and retail investor to be an active owner of the companies their money is invested, breaking up the unbalanced influence of fund managers and returning power to true shareholders. Big change takes time but we are patient and ambitious in equal measure; influencing the system, building a movement, empowering the world.

The Role

People leadership & team culture

1. Engineering culture
   • Be a visible, social leader who is present in day-to-day engineering discussions, such as architecture reviews, problem-solving and design processes.
   • Create an environment where engineers feel ownership, purpose and know what success looks like.
   • Lead from the front to set the tone for innovation, collaboration, learning, continuous improvement, engineering quality and constructive challenge.
2. Line management & mentorship
   • Directly manage, coach, and develop our five Tech Leads.
   • Coach & develop (but not line manage) the wider engineering team.
3. Engineering talent
   • Aim to maintain a lean operating model by critically assessing skills gaps and owning recruitment to ensure we have just the right - and the best - people.
   • Balance senior & junior roles while helping us to access/attract a diverse pool of candidates.
   • Maintain an exceptionally high bar for engineering recruitment, individual performance and engineering quality across the function.

Technical vision & architecture

1. Jointly own the Product/Tech roadmap, ensuring Tumelo's product approach has a clear direction and purpose, and makes creative and appropriate use of contemporary technologies to help our solutions stand out in the marketplace.
2. Bring your full, technical experience to bear to help teams make excellent decisions in architecture and design, avoid pitfalls, and attain best practice in DevOps, Agile, Security, lean principles etc.
3. Craft and articulate our technical vision and engineering strategy, focusing on good design, robust testing, and sustainability from the perspective of cost and scale.
4. Lead engineering function to ensure Tumelo's platforms are scalable, performant, cost-effective and resilient.
5. Integrate "secure by design" principles into engineering processes, with a strong appreciation for data protection. Partner with our Senior Cyber Security Engineer/Lead to manage risks associated with compliance, info sec, due diligence & IT and be the point for escalation where required.

Delivery & execution

1. Analyse and optimally arrange how engineers, work and services are distributed.
2. Partner with Product to define clear milestones and ensure feasibility, then drive accountability for on-time, high-quality releases and project management.
3. Introduce and champion metrics that matter, such as DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, MTTR), cycle time, and flow efficiency.
4. Maintain a bird's-eye view on each team's progress and pivot proactively to mitigate risks.

Cross-functional collaboration & stakeholder management

1. Product partnership
   • Represent engineering's perspective in product planning, ensuring we invest adequately in innovation and technical health.
   • Collaborate constructively with product, taking account of resource constraints to design practical, workable solutions for the business & our customers.
2. Executive leadership
   • Work with the wider exec leadership team to design long-term company strategy.
   • Provide regular, concise updates on engineering progress, key risks, and opportunities to the CEO and leadership peers.
   • Advocate for engineering needs at the executive level-especially around technical debt and the continuous development of our people.

Desirable experience:

These are desirable rather than essential criteria. We welcome applications from people who may not have all the listed criteria but who are willing to learn by doing.

1. You have led teams delivering SaaS for enterprise customers, and have a strong grasp of how these products are executed successfully.
2. You have 3+ years experience leading an engineering function of 10 - 50 people, including experience managing Technical Leads.
3. You have a 10+ year track record building and delivering excellent customer-centric products.
4. You are committed to an exceptionally high bar on quality and performance, and you enjoy challenging both your peers & reports to elevate their game.
5. You make good decisions in complex situations where there's often no "right answer" and you enjoy the strategic stakeholder engagement this entails.
6. You are adept at influencing others using data and key metrics to articulate your reasoning and then evaluate your success.
7. You have a passion for security & best practices.
8. You have a strong personal interest in impact-driven work.
9. You have enough understanding of our chosen technologies to guide and support the wider teams' decision-making.
10. You are comfortable diving into architecture reviews, code discussions, or debugging sessions with the team.
11. You can quickly build trusted relationships with your team and leadership through online and in-person work as well as regular social events - while super flexible, we'd love you to spend 2+ days in our Bristol office each week.

What we offer:

We're incredibly passionate about Tumelo's culture and ways of working. We have an amazing team who care deeply about our mission. We value team well-being and strive to build a safe, healthy environment where people can bring their whole selves to work.

• Competitive salary
• Private health insurance - via Equipsme, including 24/7 private GP access, dental, optical, and mental health support.
• Generous company share scheme. We are all owners of Tumelo and beneficiaries of our collective success.
• Great Maternity & Paternity policies. We recognise how important maternity/paternity leave is to the wellbeing of our team. For maternity leave, Tumelo offers the first 26 weeks at 100% pay, followed by Standard Maternity Pay thereafter. For paternity leave, Tumelo offers six weeks at 100% pay.
• Work From Home budget. To get you everything you need to be able to work comfortably from home.
• 5% employer pension contribution
• £50 per month wellness budget. Pick the benefit that works for you, whether that's a monthly gym membership, a regular massage, career coaching or a regular delivery of healthy food. There are over 1000 things to choose from!
• 33 days holiday. These include bank holidays, but you can take bank holidays off at your discretion, some of the team prefer to work those days and save the holiday for another time, and that's fine by us! You'll also get an extra holiday day when you've been with us for 3 years!
• Flexible hours. We commit to being available to each other on slack/email between 10am and 3pm Monday - Friday (save for lunch), but outside of these hours you can work whenever you feel most productive.
• Tumfests. The team commit to gathering together for a full day at least once per month in Bristol or an off-site location. Travel costs are covered by the business.
• Hybrid working. We encourage team members to come in at least two days per week, but we're flexible and pragmatic.

Working here, you'll grow more than you would anywhere else. You will join a team who will appreciate you every day and your contributions will genuinely change our business' future.