VP of Engineering

Consistently named one of the top D.C. start-ups to watch since 2016, Quorum builds software that helps public affairs professionals work smarter and move faster. Our philosophy is people-first, whether we're supporting team members in their careers or prioritizing our clients with a best-in-class customer success program. Quorum's clients use our tools to bring a modern approach to advocacy work in Congress, all 50 state legislatures, major U.S. cities, the European Union, and more than a dozen countries.

As the VP of Engineering at Quorum, you’ll be directly responsible for running and scaling our full engineering team of 25+ engineers and report directly to Jonathan Marks, Quorum’s Co-founder and CTO. You will serve on Quorum’s Executive Team alongside senior executives from other departments and be responsible for the execution of our entire technical and product roadmap. The VP of Engineering will be instrumental in shaping the processes, structure, and culture of the engineering organization.

We’re looking for a candidate who epitomizes the many different skills that are required to scale an industry-leading software engineering team: deep understanding of the underlying technologies and building scalable systems, a mature servant-leadership approach to management, an ability to handle complex trade-offs between different solutions to complex technical, organizational, and business problems, and a passion for solving the many thorny trade-offs inherent in scaling teams and companies. Most important is the desire to create a passionate and dedicated team with a strong engineering culture that cultivates the skills of our team members and enables them to grow both personally and professionally at Quorum.

About You

• You have at least ten years of experience in the software development world where a significant portion of that time has been spent in engineering management or leadership roles.
• You have played a variety of roles in engineering organizations: you’ve written code, directly managed engineers, and managed the managers of engineering teams. Strong candidates will have previous experience as a Director-level or VP-level executive.
• You care deeply about code, code quality, software architecture, and building maintainable systems.
• You have a strong track record of designing, implementing, and scaling complex technical systems.
• You are a strong coach that regularly supports other engineers’ career growth and development 
• You believe that engineering management is a different but equal function to software engineering and you’re excited about tackling the day-to-day challenges of motivating, managing, and supporting engineers
• You’re an active learner and enjoy both teaching and learning. You want to build your own skills (both technical and managerial) over time and want to build up the skills of those around you.
• You’re able and willing to get down into the details of technical and organizational systems and know how to find the balance between delegating tasks to your team and picking up tasks yourself when it’s required for the success of the team
• You’re excited about helping Quorum to build diverse and inclusive teams and are particularly excited about helping to build the careers of people that come from atypical or disadvantaged backgrounds in tech

About the Software Engineering Team

• We’re a fast-growing team that is dedicated to improving our people, processes, and platform. The 25-person engineering organization is composed of teams of full-stack, backend, and DevOps engineers and supported by our Product and Product Design teams.
• We support many different products but internally think of them as one system with a single unified codebase. Our goal is to build centralized systems that handle complex problems for multiple features and products.
• We’re focused on doing the important things the right way -- we write solid documentation, test our code well, design for scale, and follow defined software development processes.
• We follow best-in-class security practices to safeguard our data and application against bad actors. We regularly test and update processes and technology to fight complacency, because we know good security is a continuous effort.
• We focus on our users’ needs and strive to build easy-to-use, intelligible tools by collaborating with issue area, product, and design experts to guide our implementation decisions.
• We curate high-quality datasets that are essential for effective mapping and tracking of the government and public affairs spaces. Our datasets underpin our promise to give users the information necessary to make smart decisions that influence policy.
• We set rigorous quality standards and monitor them with a mix of programmatic and manual verifications to ensure users maintain a high degree of trust in our systems.
• We’re very close as a team and invest not only in each others’ skills and careers but also in building real relationships with one another: product development is a team sport and we believe that it’s better (and more fun) to work on a team of people that you know well and care about.

What You'll Do

• First Week: You’ll learn the ins and outs of Quorum’s products, technical strategy, roadmap, and challenges, and you’ll get to know 25+ Software Engineering team members.
• First Month: You’ll start working with our team on existing projects and systems and start formulating your vision for how the team should continue to evolve and grow.
• First Six Months: You’ll mentor and coach our existing team members to improve their skills and start bringing new team members into the organization. You’ll start implementing your vision for how the team’s people, processes, and technology should grow.
• First Year: You’ll watch with pride as the engineering organization continues to grow and improve under your leadership. You’ll act as a model for both strategic vision and precise execution and impact the entire company’s direction both as a department leader and as a member of the company-wide Executive Team.

Our Work Environment

• We usually work in a vibrant, sunlit space in our modern, open concept office. During the COVID-19 health crisis, most of our team members are working from home in locations around the world, but our office is open for team members that want to work in person. Team members will have the option to work from home until the COVID pandemic abates, and afterwards there will be significant flexibility to work from home multiple days a week.
• Our office building is located in the heart of downtown DC, easily accessible by metro, bus, and rideshares. It is also in close proximity to great restaurants, food trucks, shopping, and popular happy hour spots.
• Our team loves to spend time doing fun things outside of the office, which we call Quorum Fun events. Past Quorum Fun events have included apple picking, yoga, and wine tasting.

Do you want to learn what it's like to have a real impact at a fast-growing company that is changing the way the advocacy process works? If so, drop us a line. We'd love to talk to you!

To be fast-tracked, mention Rise in your application.

Compensation Structure

• On Target Earnings: $200,000 - $300,000 (a combination of base and performance-based variable compensation)
• Stock Options: Included in executive compensation package
• Benefits: 401(k), trans-inclusive health/dental/vision, 12-weeks paid maternity/paternity/adoption/fostering leave, unlimited PTO, and much more.