Director, Server Engineering

Marco Polo is a video chat app created for one simple and significant purpose—to help people feel close.

We're currently seeking a Director of Server Engineering to lead our Server and DevOps engineers in building and maintaining world-class products that help people feel close. A great candidate for this role is a strong people manager who has experience leading embedded teams of engineers and excels planning, prioritizing, and managing costs. They will be responsible for running our live service, ensuring our code base and security is solid, and making sure that we have strong operational practices that enable these embedded engineers to maximize their impact. This is a manager-doer role: 75% of of the time will be managing individuals and the larger team; 25% will be individual contributor work.

In this position, you will:

• Own the technical roadmap for our live service: You will be responsible for leading our efforts to maintain and improve our live service. You’ll proactively identify, prioritize and address risks, vulnerabilities and limits in our system before they lead to large-scale issues. You’ll work with the leadership team to define and execute a roadmap for the team that enables us to deliver our larger company goals.
• Facilitate appropriate staffing across company efforts:You’ll work with partners across the business to coordinate server work and ensure our platform is operating at maximum velocity. You’ll build strong communication channels with these key stakeholders, ensuring you understand their needs and can evolve our platforms to address them. You’ll prioritize the work, making well-informed decisions and tradeoffs.
• Provide People Leadership: You’ll build, inspire and manage a talented set of engineers who are embedded on other teams. You’ll coach and empower the team to consistently deliver on the most important projects to meet the needs of the business across the company, on time and with high quality. You will constantly seek opportunities to help uplevel our technical excellence in this area.

Ideally, you have:

• 7+ years of software development experience
• 2 + years of people management or similar leadership experience
• Experience working in a matrixed environment, ideally in an earlier stage company.
• Experience with Python, cloud providers and the solution designs that are built around these technologies (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, etc.)
• A passion for people management. You love empowering and developing team members. You have a strong track record of creating team cohesion to enable the team to achieve great things.
• The ability to work in a fast-paced, constantly learning environment.
• A strong track record in finding pragmatic solutions to complex technical or organizational challenges.

Benefits & Perks:

• Comprehensive medical, vision and dental coverage plus benefits that support your mental health and emotional well-being.
• Flexible paid time off, generous company holidays and self care days.
• 100% remote, anywhere in North America.
• Stipend for a coworking space.
• A work schedule built to fit your real life.
• Quarterly in-person and virtual team retreats, all expenses paid.
• Compensation: Our cash compensation package is made of up two components - base pay and equity in the company. The target salary for this position is $200,000-$250,000 per year. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including knowledge, skills, and experience, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Does this sound interesting to you? If so, then we'd love to hear from you. We care deeply about diversity and inclusion at Marco Polo. If you’re on the fence about whether you’re a fit, go ahead and apply! Each application is reviewed by a real, live human who understands that each candidate’s unique lived experience is more valuable than buzzwords on a resume.

A bit about us:

Marco Polo is private video chat for your real relationships - not the entire world. Our video chat app allows you to send a video message at your convenience, and your friend or family member can send back whenever they can. With millions of people already benefiting from this new way of using technology to nurture their relationships, we’re proving that we can reject harmful but profitable business practices and build products that are good for you.

In June 2020, we launched Marco Polo Plus, a subscription plan that offers a premium experience. We aim to be a sustainable business while remaining free in a way that upholds our brand promise to be good for you. Plus delivers on our promise to monetize without ads or selling user data. 

Though our backgrounds are diverse, we share a belief—lives flourish when people feel close. That common inspiration keeps us aligned with our purpose as a team, which is scattered across 16 states (so far), coast-to-coast throughout North America.

The distance doesn't slow us down. We keep the engine humming from our homes, co-working spaces, and coffee shops—connecting with daily Zoom calls, and retreats. Whether collaborating through Slack, video calls, or of course Marco Polo, our team knows how to keep connected—it’s what we do best!

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We can add teammates from anywhere in North America.

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