VP Engineering

The Opportunity

The Daily Beast is looking for an experienced and enthusiastic leader to grow and manage our team of software and infrastructure engineers, and to define our technical strategy and roadmap. The engineering team plays a critical role at The Daily Beast, building and deploying across all of our platforms, including web, iOS and Android apps, and our homegrown CMS and streamlined deployment process. This work is the foundation that allows us to drive performance across a diversified business that includes subscriptions, display and affiliate revenue. 

Major initiatives from the past year include developing a new content classification data structure and site experience for our new vertical, Obsessed, the launch of our dynamic paywall, and user identity solutions that lay the groundwork for a more robust first party data strategy. Upcoming projects include further optimizations to our homegrown CMS, a continued focus on site performance, stability and work to improve engineering and deployment efficiency across the stack. 

This ideal candidate will have strong practical business sense, effectively delegating their time and that of their team to make the biggest impacts on the business. They will also have the ability to identify long-term/short-term implications of engineering decisions, big and small, and be able to communicate them to peers.

The VP, Engineering will report to the Chief Product Officer, manage the engineering team, and collaborate closely with all levels of the organization. The Engineering team is New York-based with a flexible work from home policy. 

• Develop a vision and roadmap for the Engineering team that helps shape future strategic decision making with sound technical solutions
• Foster an inclusive and welcoming culture within the engineering team, promoting close collaboration and career development
• Hold regular 1:1s, evaluate performance, and provide consistent productive feedback with a focus on career progression and individual development for your team’s professional growth at The Daily Beast and beyond
• Grow the technical expertise of your team around quality, scalability, and performance
• Be responsible for the successful launch of new products/features by managing scope/timelines, reviewing technical documentation, and considering resourcing needs to ensure day to day progress
• Collaborate closely with product, design, the newsroom, growth, data & insights, and revenue teams to define strategy, execute on roadmaps, and remove roadblocks
• Clearly translate technical concepts and context to non-technical colleagues, encouraging critical thinking through transparency and understanding
• Continually improve the engineering team’s process from the introduction of a new project, through definition, stakeholder alignment, scoping, implementation and future iterations 
• Proactively ensure compliance with the latest global security, accessibility, and privacy requirements
• Foster curiosity throughout the day-to-day work and identify opportunities for engineers to have domain ownership

• Experience in leading a team to deliver high quality software on both web and iOS/Android, evaluating architecture tradeoffs and helping teams make technical decisions
• 8+ years of professional software development experience, on production-quality products. 3+ years experience as a people manager
• Experience with some portion of our tech stack, and an appetite to learn the remainder: AWS, Javascript (React, Node.js, Apollo/GraphQL), Postgres, Kubernetes.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Experience working with product leadership to deliver on time and on target
• A strong desire to stay connected to the codebase
• Knowledge of the constantly evolving media landscape. Experience in publishing/media is highly desired but not required 

The Daily Beast is built with:  

• Node.js 
• React 
• GraphQL 
• Postgres 
• Kubernetes 
• AWS 

Why Work Here

The pay range for this position is: $225,000 to $275,000/year. The base salary range represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to work location, experience, performance and other factors. The range listed is just one component of The Daily Beast’s total compensation package for employees. The Daily Beast provides a variety of benefits to employees, including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, 401K employer matching program, paid holidays, and paid time off (PTO).

Additional Information

Don’t meet every single requirement listed here? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet each and every qualification. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re interested in joining the Beast but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with this job description, we encourage you to give it a shot all the same. It might turn out that you're just the right candidate for this or other roles. See more about our commitment to diversity at https://www.thedailybeast.com/company/diversity

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.