VP of Technology (Engineering, Data & Security)

Be a part of Acuity Insights’ startup-to-scaleup journey as our first VP of Technology, a role in which you’ll provide strategic leadership and technical guidance to maximize the potential of the technology and data behind our products.

We’re seeking a purpose-driven technical leader with an understanding of broader business dynamics and deep expertise in shaping software ecosystems to lead our technology functions. In this role, you’ll define and drive a vision, strategy, and roadmap that guides platform and software development and fuels business growth.

What We’re Building

Imagine a world powered by everyone’s full potential. 

At Acuity Insights, it’s the future we envision and strive to build. 

Our company was founded on the need for a higher education admissions method that looks beyond academic performance and considers the whole student—their unique qualities, experiences, and strengths. 

Today, our solutions help discover and develop potential, supporting holistic success for students, education programs, and higher education institutions from admission to graduation across North America, the U.K., Australia and Saudi Arabia, Ivy League universities and prestigious Medical school programs.

With our core assessment product, Casper, we provide education programs with a more holistic view of applicants by evaluating their soft skills. Incorporating Casper's insights into the admissions process results in a larger applicant pool, a more diverse student body, and a vibrant learning environment that graduates better professionals. Since 2014, Casper has been adopted by over 600 higher education programs, and the test has been taken by 1 million applicants.   

With our core program experience product, One45, we deliver education management technology that helps streamline and improve the processes and generate data-driven insights needed to train and graduate future doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. Over 100 medical and health science programs use One45 today.  

With our new and fast-growing data platform, Analytics, we generate insights and decision-support with metrics, dashboards, and reports that enable confident, real-time decisions that improve program and student performance. 

Acuity Insights is at a new growth stage. Our roots are planted firmly in medical, health science and teaching professions. We are expanding into other professional disciplines, including engineering and business, and working to balance the support for our core products with innovation in a fast-changing market landscape. 

Opportunity & Impact 

As VP of Data & Technology, your work will enable us to scale and remain technologically competitive as we deepen our customer relationships with a growing family of products and services.

You’ll work remotely from Canada, report to Matt Holland (CEO), be a valued member of our Executive Leadership team, and a partner to our other Executive team members and business leaders: Kelly Dore (Co-Founder and VP of Science and Innovation), Anju Visen-Singh (VP of Product & Marketing), Leanne Newell (VP of Revenue), Puneet Arora (VP of Finance), and Meegan Carlson (Senior Director of People, Culture, and Enablement).

In this role, you’ll support and scale technology and develop our platform to power our business operations and the solutions we offer. Our solutions include a blend of mature and newer products.

Assessments

• Casper. Measures applicant’s soft skills. 
• Duet. Measures program-applicant values alignment. 
• Snapshot. Measures applicant's verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Formative. Measures growth of student professionalism over time. 

Program Experience

• One45. Streamlines education program management workflows and generates data-driven insights.  
• Analytics. Delivers data and insights on students, cohorts, courses, and program performance. 

As our first VP of Technology, you’ll lead and be accountable for budgets for an organization with nearly 40 team members distributed across Vancouver, Toronto/GTA, and spanning Software Development, Data, IT, and Security. 

Stepping into the role now is also an opportunity to shape the function so it’s structured for scale and continues to foster a culture that attracts and retains high-calibre talent.

You’ll partner closely with your direct report, Tracy Wilkinson (Director of Engineering), on your initiatives and collaborate with Tracy and the Analytics and ML Research teams to build our AI capabilities in software development and reduce manual effort in our IT operations. 

As our strategic technology leader, you’ll guide the software engineering team in evolving our existing data architecture and data warehouse platform to enable access to better-quality and more structured data and improve our offerings and explore opportunities for new products that serve and expand our markets.

You will also help us integrate new technologies into our strategy and operating model and upgrade our technology architecture to integrate and manage ML / AI models.

Your areas of ownership and accountability include:  

Vision & Strategy 

• Driving technology vision & roadmap in alignment with business and product objectives.
• Defining, developing and driving the execution of Acuity’s technology roadmap, covering support for current customers, modernization of our technology for robustness and scalability, and exploring innovation and growth opportunities.
• Exploring and adopting AI and other emerging cloud-based technologies, particularly to strengthen product integration, enhance services, and drive innovation in data initiatives.
• Collaborating with the Product Management, Design and Operations teams to evolve and strengthen the adoption of our Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC). 

Communication, Collaboration, & Partnerships

• Contributing to defining and adjusting broader company strategy, objectives, and priorities as a member of the Executive Leadership team. 
• Representing the Technology organization and its functions, including Software Development, Data, IT and Security, to the Board, advocating and getting buy-in for technical decisions and resources needed to execute. 
• Bringing opportunities, updates, and reports on progress to the Board, the Executive teams and the organization as a whole. 
• Partnering with Product & Marketing teams to build and support our market-leading solutions and the Sales team as a customer-facing Technology leader. 
• Collaborating with the IT and Security teams to ensure robust monitoring, alerting, incident responses and certifications like SOC2 Type 2 and TX RAMP. 
• Leading vendor management, including sourcing, evaluating, selecting, and negotiating with Cloud, Security, Application, and other partners.

Leadership & Team Development

• Structuring and leading an organization that supports team growth, the evolution of our product offering, and enables and incentivizes cross-functional collaboration.
• Developing and nurturing senior talent within the Software Development team. 
• Building an outcomes-oriented team and an engaging, rewarding, productive and software development culture that values equity, diversity and inclusion. 

To thrive in this role, you:

• Are a proven software development leader with experience at the CTO, VP, or Director level in scaling product organizations, driving technology vision, roadmap, and data strategy from ideation to execution.
• Led a 40+ person software development organization, with Directors and/or Managers as your direct reports, and have supported them in building an outcomes-oriented team and an engaging, rewarding, productive software development culture that values diversity, equity and inclusion. 
• Bring technical depth rooted in your passion as a builder, allowing you to guide the technical roadmap, contribute to the overall systems architecture, and support your team in solving complex technical problems.
• Have worked with data-centric products or data warehousing platforms and had a chance to explore and experiment with how best to integrate machine learning/AI capabilities to deliver value to customers. 
• Led the evolution from a single product to a multi-product platform or software application ecosystem, navigating challenges like organizational design, cross-team collaborations, and high-stakes technology decisions with product/platform implications.
• Helped define, evolve and adapt software development processes to organizational needs with a clear focus on achieving measurable results and delivering incredible customer experiences.  
• Had an opportunity to work in different industries and multiple companies at different sizes and stages of growth, giving you a broader perspective on business, technology and innovation.

To thrive in our work environment, you are:

• Caring toward people, whether they are team members or external partners. You take time to listen, understand and empathize. You don’t hesitate to provide constructive feedback and enjoy sharing your knowledge and perspective to help others learn and grow.
• Curious by nature and open to possibilities and different viewpoints. You like exploring, experimenting, asking questions, listening, and learning from other people’s points of view. 
• Driven to help realize our vision and mission, problem-solve independently and with your team members and collaborators, continuously seeking to grow your knowledge and improve your skills and practices. 
• Resilient, you keep going, bounce back from challenges, and welcome and embrace the change necessary to scale our company.
• Self-aware, knowing your strengths, gaps, emotions and values, fueling continuous personal and professional growth.
• Motivated by purposeful work that has a meaningful impact and aligns with your values and interests. 

Selection Process

We review every application. We consider all your professional experiences and how you have applied your skills and knowledge to add value and make an impact. We also look for evidence that you share our core values (caring, curious, and driven) and are interested in helping bring people's potential to life.

To ensure a fair process, you will receive equal consideration whether you apply, get introduced as a referral, or directly contact the manager or recruiter for this role.

Applicants who do not live in Canada or have a work permit will automatically be screened out.

Interview Process

We have designed our interview process to be a two-way discovery and create space for meaningful conversations.

We want to get to know you personally and professionally, understand your career journey and experiences, relevant skills, professional interests and priorities, and assess for alignment with our business needs and what we can offer you.

We also want you to have the information you need to make an informed decision about this opportunity. That’s why we encourage you to stay curious and ask questions every step of the way.

Here are the steps you can expect:

• Application Review. A human reviews your application for potential and fit.
• Conversations with Our Recruitment Partner (gdR). Have an introductory video conversation to assess for high-level alignment. Assuming there’s a great fit, there will be a subsequent conversation during which you will have the opportunity to share highlights of your professional journey and interests while also learning more about the opportunity (e.g., company, products, tech, culture, team, and compensation). 
• Conversation with the CEO. Have a video conversation with and get to know Matt, learn more deeply about our business and outlook and answer questions.  
• Conversation with Peers and Direct Report. Have video conversations with potential future peers and collaborators in Product and Marketing and direct reports from Software Development. Learn about the business and our opportunities through their lens and life at Acuity Insights, and answer questions.
• Present Case Study. Prepare and present a case study of a relevant experience to the team you have met with through the process so far. This will be followed by some additional 1-1 time with Matt to reflect on your takeaways and talk about company priorities and how you might tackle them together. 
• Conversation with the Chair of the Acuity Board of Directors. Have a video conversation with the Chair of our Board, Bernard Lim, and his perspectives on the business and our future, learn how the Board and Executive team collaborate and answer questions. 
• Decision. The Hiring Manager consolidates and evaluates feedback from the team to make a hiring decision. This typically takes 2-4 days, but please consider that a final decision may not be made until other candidates have also completed the process.
• Offer & Reference Checks. If we’ve found a mutual match, we'll invite you to an offer conversation. The offer is contingent on completing reference checks. 

Compensation & Benefits

• Flexible and remote work. Enjoy the freedom to work from anywhere within Canada, work from abroad for up to 6 weeks per year, and configure your schedule and work hours to best suit your life. 
• Fair pay. Get paid fairly for your work with a salary aligned to your role, skill level, and job responsibilities, informed by internal pay equity and market data.   
• Prioritized rest and time off. Enjoy two weeks of disconnected vacation at year-end, self-directed vacation (people typically take 4-6 weeks per year), extra Fridays off throughout the year, and support for medical, family, or mental health needs without financial worry.
• Company equity. Become a partial owner of Acuity Insights when you join, sharing in long-term value creation and financial success through our employee stock option plan.
• Investment in your growth. Access a $3,000 yearly budget for professional and personal development.
• Save for retirement. Join our GRSP matching program through Wealthsimple. We match contributions up to 2% of your salary. 
• Support for health & wellness. Access comprehensive health benefits for yourself and your dependents through Equitable Life of Canada from Day 1 of your employment.
• Growing your family. Take parental leave, regardless of your role in expanding your family, and receive a top-up for 16 weeks beyond EI benefits.

Working at Acuity Insights

Behind Acuity Insights, you'll find a team of 130+ caring, curious, and driven individuals dedicated to our company’s success. We collaborate remotely and occasionally co-work in person across Canada and some international locations.

We are committed to fostering a work environment where everyone feels respected, valued, and well-supported. We’ve designed our processes and policies to create a sense of community and belonging, promote equity, embrace diversity, champion inclusion and encourage work-life balance so that every individual can bring their full potential.

We recognize that every person on our team is unique and has different qualities, lived experiences, strengths and life situations. Our team's diversity is our strength. We know it contributes to a healthier work environment, enables us to build and operate a more sustainable organization, and makes us capable of delivering better business outcomes.

We encourage individuals from non-traditional backgrounds or historically marginalized and underrepresented groups to explore and apply to this role.

Thanks for considering Acuity Insights as your next employer!