Vice President of Engineering, Optimal Dynamics

• If you see yourself as both an architect and a connector who has successfully directed fast-moving, scaling technical teams, this could be the role for you
• Experienced: Our ideal candidate has 10+ years of engineering experience and 3+ years of managing managers. Your work history showcases significant time designing and building production systems
• Leader: You’ve led a dynamic engineering organization in a scaling technical or startup environment. Ambiguity energizes you. (Bonus points if you’ve grown a technical organization in a research-born company)
• You’re a problem-solver and architect; you stay current with emerging tools and your experience showcases a history of technical decisions that have guided engineering organizations into the future
• You see what’s coming on the horizon and are the SME on all technical decisions, building a stack and platform that stays ahead of the technical curve
• You've built and scaled B2B SaaS, ideally with enterprise customers
• Security Focused: You treat security as a business-level priority: continually hardening infrastructure, data, and access against external attacks and insider threats as we scale. You’ve directed ongoing SOC 2 compliance standards
• Collaborator and Connector: You excel in communicating and advocating as the go-between for engineering, product, AI/analytics, and leadership; it's part of the job that fuels you, not a chore. You connect engineers, executives, and customers alike. You can both push back with conviction and admit when you’re wrong
• Trust Builder: You’ve stepped into teams with existing managers and history before, and you know how to earn trust and build consensus. You care about the real-world impact of technical products and see the value in the optimization our product brings to the logistics and transportation landscape

Desirable

• Optimal Dynamics is searching for a VP of Engineering who is a builder at their core
• As our senior engineering leader, the VP of Engineering reports directly to our COO, leads our engineering organization, oversees engineering team managers, and serves as Engineering’s voice to executive leadership
• You’ll set technical direction, turn business priorities into executable plans, and build strong, connected teams, all while staying hands-on in architecture and code
• You’ll work closely and cross-functionally with Product, Design, AI, and Analytics leadership
• Oversee and enable Engineering Managers, understand their priorities, and build a cohesive, connected engineering organization
• Recruit, develop, and retain great engineers, building a team that can scale
• Strengthen a low-ego, high-ownership engineering culture that delivers rapid and exceptional product
• Own engineering vision, architecture, and technology strategy with a focus on reliability, security, and scalability
• Implement best CI/CD and QA practices–setting and defining policy on how we build, test, and deploy to production
• Identify blockers and execute plans that create efficiency and excellence with a willingness to not only delegate, but step in on critical needs
• Make pragmatic decisions that fit our stage, and know when to move fast and when to invest for the long term
• Partner with AI and Analytics leadership so our AI and optimization work turns into reliable, production-grade software
• Foster agreement and collaboration - clear ownership where your teams’ work overlaps and intermingles
• Work with Product leadership on vision, roadmap, prioritization, and tradeoffs
• Represent engineering to the C-Suite: advocate for the team, provide progress reports, flag risks early, and set realistic timelines
• Join and contribute to key customer, partner, and investor conversations, providing technical credibility
• Implement lightweight processes, metrics, and operating rhythms that improve how fast and how predictably we deliver
• Own engineering career pathing, headcount, vendors, and cloud spend
• Ensure security, data privacy, and compliance standards meet enterprise customer expectations