Funded and growing startup looking to fill an immediate need for VP Director of Engineering position.

Our stack is built in Grails, so are looking for Grails/Java experience.

About Conference Software Solutions (CSS)
CSS is a software platform used in the event space (trade shows, conferences, meetings) to facilitate and manage meaningful one-to-one meetings between attendees.  Our platform gives attendees their best possible set of meetings at conferences to get business done.

About the Team
Whether it is understanding the dynamic and complex relationships around large data sets, designing end-user experiences, or building the best recommendation engine for meetings, the CSS small but mighty team is strongly focused and determined to solve challenging problems around event productivity.  This is a company with a fast paced, highly collaborative startup environment.

What We’re Doing
CSS is currently building the next generation of scheduling and matchmaking technology, all powered by our extensive experience in the event space. We understand the value in stable, established frameworks and patterns, but we aren't afraid to jump into new technologies when the opportunity arises. We enjoy great clean code, but understand that sometimes you need to hack something out. We are fans of open source and aim to contribute when we can. We enjoy working with smart people who can get things done.

We are seeking a hands-on, highly contributing leader who can take the development organization to the next level. To expand our leadership and deliver customer satisfaction around the globe, we must focus on delivering SaaS offerings that resonate with the needs of the market, differentiate us from competitors, and provide a top-quality user experience throughout the customer life cycle.

You will report directly to the CEO. You are great at building relationships among the team and fostering a collaborative environment. You must enjoy spending time with customers to understand their needs and delivering innovative solutions. You have experience with a high-performing product organization delivering high-quality software using a formal agile methodology, and are first, last and always an engineer. The position is open in Chicago.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, support and mentor the growing engineering team for all aspects of product and service development (Design, Architecture, Development, DevOps and QA, Documentation and Support)
• Lead the Product Development processes, in tight collaboration with exec team, event teams, support, sales and marketing
• Oversee the architecture of CSS technology 
• Represent CSS’s technology in customer-facing situations for sales or support
• Oversee workload and priorities for the team, and be a full-time individual contributor
• Actively participate and engage with current and future potential technology partners
• Be an active, key member of the Executive team that sets CSS’s strategic plans
• Formulate long-term objectives and standards of performance for the platform
• Collaborate across the organization to support company initiatives and drive customer success

Required Knowledge and Skills

• 5+ years of experience in engineering delivering high quality applications
• Passion for cloud and SaaS technology and the people that build / deploy and manage this technology
• Understanding and operating knowledge of cloud infrastructure and platform technology
• Experience with web Applications as well as Mobile Apps (iOS & Android)
• Demonstrated technical experience in one or more of the following areas: Software design or development, Systems Operations / Management, Server frameworks
• Oversight experience on major transformation projects and successful transitions to implementation support teams.
• Strong product development process experience with demonstrated track record of successful releases under tight deadlines.
• Working knowledge of agile development methodology (e.g. SCRUM) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) with architecture of large-scale, complex, distributed infrastructure and software systems including the following technologies
  • Java
  • SQL Server
  • AWS
  • Understanding of APIs
• Excited by organizational planning and process improvement, with a passion for raising the bar with team
• Excellent project and resource management skills
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to communicate complex issues in a concise way to different audiences, including the Board of Directors.
• Values customer success, with passion for delivering great user experience.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience is required
• 5+ years of engineering management with demonstrated success managing a distributed team
• Experience as a Director or Senior engineer in previous employment history
• Experience in a Service Provider or “as a Service” provider environment