Director of Engineering

Overall

As Director of Engineering, you’re responsible for functional slices of the Tech team, leading engineers across multiple teams.

You're not generally expected to write code on a day-to-day basis. You should, however, have a strong technical background and spend some of your time researching new technologies and staying abreast of trends in the tech industry. You will be expected to help debug and triage critical systems and should understand the systems you oversee well enough to perform code reviews and help research problems as needed. You should contribute to the architecture and design efforts primarily by serving as the technically-savvy voice that asks business and product questions of the engineers on their teams, ensuring that the code we are writing matches the product and business needs and can scale appropriately as those needs grow.

Responsibilities

You're primarily concerned with ensuring the smooth execution of complex deliverables. To that end, you focus on ensuring that we continually evaluate and refine our development/infrastructure standards and processes to create technology that will deliver sustained value to Glossier. You’re responsible for creating high performance, high-velocity organizations, measuring and iterating on processes as we grow and evolve as a business. You’re a leader in recruiting, headcount management and planning, career growth and training for the organization. As necessary, you will manage vendor relationships and participate in the budgeting process.

The impact of a Director of Engineering should reach across multiple areas of the technology team. You’re responsible for creating and growing the next generation of tech leadership and management talent at Glossier, helping them learn how to balance leadership in both technical and people areas, as well as management. You’re obsessed with creating a high-functioning, engaged and motivated team, as of the owner of retention goals on the Engineering team. You’re also responsible for strategically balancing immediate and long-term product/business focused work with technical debt and strategic technical development.

You and Your Team

You’re a strong leader and set the example for cross-functional collaboration across Tech teams and with other areas of the company. The goal of this collaboration is to create a strategic and tactical roadmap that tackles business needs, efficiencies and revenue, as well as fundamental technology innovation.

You’re a very strong communicator and can simplify technical concepts for non-technical partners. Likewise, you can also take business direction and explain it to the Tech team in a way that inspires and guides them. You contribute to a positive public presence for Glossier Engineering and can sell the company to potential candidates.

Due to your breadth of exposure to both technology and business drivers, you’re responsible for guiding the planning process for your team, helping them articulate goals that support business initiatives, technology, and organizational quality.

Example Skills and Behaviors

People Leader

• Strong leader with track record of recruiting and building teams, developing and retaining talent
• Skilled and experienced in handling most people relations issues, leans on People Team or manager for complex issues
• Implements effective processes to ensure the broader Engineering team’s health

Knowledge

• Requires expertise in function/sub-function with an ability to apply knowledge in creative ways for tailor-made Glossier solutions

Communication

• Through strong communication and collaboration, able to effectively advise executives to refine and inform Glossier strategy
• Creates processes to improve communication across teams (both within Technology and the broader company)
• Evangelizes for engineering concerns across the organization
• Is a model for inclusive and transparent communication

Executing / Delivering Goals

• Develops strategy for function that aligns to functional and Glossier’s goals
• Ability to execute independently against goals for function/sub-function
• Tracks the overall velocity of the Engineering team; identifies and implements improvements that increase velocity
• Drives long-term initiatives to completion

Discretion / Supervision

• Accomplishes work via managing teams and managers; minimal IC work

Operational Elements

• Ability to develop and manage budgets for function/sub-function, as applicable