Director of Engineering

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Job description

About the Company

We believe it should be easy for pet parents to do the right thing. At Pawlicy Advisor, personalized advice from the most trustworthy experts ensures pets get the best care possible.

Pawlicy Advisor is a fast-growing, venture-backed startup focused on helping pet owners around the country find the right health products for their pets, starting with pet health insurance. Pet insurance's popularity is growing rapidly as pet owners seek protection from the high cost of veterinary care. Our pet insurance marketplace takes into account a pet's breed-specific health risks to help people find the right policy for their pet. We also save pet owners money by analyzing pricing differences and premium increases over the lifetime of an animal.

We market to pet parents through a number of channels, but the partners we value the most are veterinarians. Vets love pet insurance because it increases that chance a pet parent will be able to afford the cost of treatment, but vets don't know what providers to recommend and don't want the liability associated with recommending a specific brand. Pawlicy Advisor helps thousands of vet offices across the US by simplifying the treatment financing conversation.

Although we are currently a remote company, we intend to establish permanent offices in San Francisco and NYC following our next major round of funding. This position is strategically placed in San Francisco close in proximity to our current team and leadership with the expectation of working from an office in San Francisco two days per week.

San Francisco Bay area location is a job requirement
Where is the Pawlicy Advisor team located?

Pawlicy is headquartered in NYC and currently the majority of the team operates remotely with a few focused work places around the country. We meet up for company offsites on a regular basis where we fly the whole team out to a fun destination and spend a few days team building. Our last few involved paddle boarding, horse riding, and some early morning yoga. We can't wait for the next one :)

How large are you as a business?

At the time this job post was written, we're 30. By the end of 2024 we expect to be at approximately 35. Happy to talk more about it in person but below are few stats to get you excited:

1000's of veterinarians are using our product every day to help educate their clients about treatment financing options

We account for a meaningful percentage of the total new pet insurance selected in the US

We've raised >$19M in venture capital to date

How does Pawlicy Advisor make money?

We're a licensed insurance agency so we get paid a commission by the pet insurance company when we help pet parents buy a plan for their pet. These commissions are already priced into the cost of pet health insurance so they're not paying extra to work with us.

Organizational Structure

This will be our most senior engineering position at Pawlicy Advisor. The Director of Engineering will report directly to our Head of Product, and will have the opportunity to shape the future of the company as the leader of engineering by driving key architectural decisions that will enable us to scale as our volume continues to significantly increase.

Requirements

Responsibilities:

Develop and grow an outstanding team of engineers (currently five engineers) by providing technical expertise, career guidance and coaching

Ensure quality of code and speed of execution for the engineering team utilizing scrum methodologies, leading standup, engineering refinement and sprint planning

Become a cross-functional leader through transparent communication and leveraging your expertise to provide feedback to shape the direction and strategy for the business

Provide technical leadership and direction with architectural decisions, deployment strategies among other key decisions

Partner with product and design leadership to guide and determine the product roadmap in the short and long term

Represent Pawlicy Advisor in strategic conversations with our key partner to provide guidance on key engineering decisions

Define and approve new tooling and integrations that can help Pawlicy Advisor expand its capabilities

Qualifications:

BS/MS in Computer Science or other technical field

5 years of experience as a software engineer with modern technical frameworks such as React and at least 2 years of experience as a manager

Experience in a dynamic, high growth start-up environment

Communication skills - you will be relied upon by the leaders of this company to provide technical expertise and appropriate roadmap timings and tradeoffs for major strategic work. The ability to explain a complex technical subject to non-technical people will be key

Ability to think with a company-first mindset and make difficult decisions that will benefit Pawlicy Advisor long term

Self-motivated individual who is willing to roll up their sleeves and dig into complex problems as needed

Experience leading both front end and back end engineering teams as well as multiple teams simultaneously

Legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship

Reside in the San Francisco Bay area

Preferred

Experience with marketplace based products

Pet health care industry experience

Familiarity working closely with data science teams

Experience with developing and maintaining sorting algorithms

Benefits

Competitive market salary (range $205,000- $225,000)

Equity grants

Currently would manage a team of five excellent engineers including a technical lead, two senior engineers and two mid-level engineers with near term goals to significantly grow headcount post our next funding round

Yearly $1,000 stipend for career development

Flexible (currently unlimited) vacation. We're focused primarily on your output.

Top tier health, dental, vision insurance

Full 3% 401k employer contributions

The chance to be an early hire at a well-funded, venture-backed startup and help build a billion-dollar business focused on helping pets.

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