VP Engineering/CTO - Microservices Architecture

Job description:

Must have basic knowledge of Software Technologies like PHP, JavaScript, etc.

The ideal candidate will be responsible for planning, coordinating, and implementing projects within the decided-upon budget, timeline, and scope. They will also effectively monitor and present project updates to relevant stakeholders, clients, or project team members.

Responsibilities:

1. Set project timeline

2. Monitor project deliverables

3. Monitor project baseline to ensure activities progressing as planned

4. Monitor project burndown charts

5. Monitor employee's performance with KPI's

6. Update relevant stakeholders or team members on the project progress

7. Coach and support project team members with tasks you assign them

CTO Job Description

We are seeking a highly-skilled CTO with a storied history in the technological sector. CTO's will be tasked with making executive technology decisions on behalf of the company, including managing a technology budget and making investments to align the company with its vision for its technological needs. You should be a strategic thinker, an effective communicator, and an expert in technological development.

You will work directly under the Founder and will act as both a technology and business expert, making decisions that will impact the current and future operations of the company.

CTO Responsibilities:

• Setting a vision for how technology will be used in the company.
• Ensuring that technological resources meet the company's short and long-term needs.
• Outline the goals for research and development.
• Creating timelines for the development and deployment of all technological services.
• Making executive decisions on behalf of the company's technological requirements.
• Acting as a mentor to team members.
• Maintaining a consumer-focused outlook and aiding in the delivery of IT projects to market.
• Managing technology budgets and time frames.
• Staying on top of technology trends and developments.
• Ensuring all technology practices adhere to regulatory standards.

CTO Requirements:

• Masters degree in computer science or related field.
• MBA preferred.
• The applicant must possess entrepreneurial experience.
• Exposure to startup/ internet industry preferred
• 8+ years working in a technological role.
• 5 years of managerial experience.
• Advanced technological skillset and a demonstrated history with technology.
• Exceptional team management skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication.
• Ability to delegate efficiently.
• Extensive industry knowledge with an eye toward the future.

About First Principles

We are a Tech Holding Company and our portfolio companies generate millions in revenue. What is unique about FirstPrinciples is that most of our companies remain controlled and majority owned by First Principles and its team members rather than by external investors. We are proud that our product engineering team builds world class products from India. https://firstprinciples.io/">https://firstprinciples.io/

About this Role

As we scale and build our organisation, we would like to add an individual to our core Technical Leadership who can scale our key products and projects and help us build and foster relationships with Enterprise clients.

We are looking for an experienced Technology Leader to join our fast growing organisation to help us with driving Technical Strategy, Approach and oversee the Implementation for internal and external products. You should be someone who loves Engineering, have amazing debugging skills and slay problems with technology. 

In this role, you will undertake Technical / Solution Architecture and should also be able to help team with Engineering and coding wherever required. That includes, working along with the team, writing code, doing R&D or POCs, ensuring we follow modern industry standards and building beautiful high performing Software and Applications and thus delivering a better solution and product. You will also help FP build strong relationships with clients and technical leadership on the client side.

You would be required to have a minimum of 10+ years of experience with a mix of Engineering, DevOps, Infrastructure, Cyber - Network Security, Enterprise Application Maintenance, Database Management along with Project, Client and People Management skills which are necessary to lead the team and be their voice. You should be a leader and not just a manager who loves delegating things to the off-shore team, but rather someone who would not hesitate to take over Git-Pull and start writing code and show ‘here is how it’s done’ and amaze everyone with your expertise! :-) 

Because this is a Senior role, you would also be involved working with the Product/Project Manager and will be responsible for the delivery and output.

Tech Stack [High-Level]: We are JavaScript focused i.e. we work in ReactJS, NodeJS, AngularJS, TypeForm, TypeScript, Redis. On the server side, we work with AWS/GCP/DO. Database: MySQL, PostgreS and MongoDb. API: REST and GraphQL API. We also have a strong DevOps stack - including Kubernetes(K8), Dockers and CI/CD automation. 

Interview Process: 

• 60 min Discovery Call
• 15 mins introduction and what you bring to the table (We love people who say, “We build the damn table”) 
• 15 min understanding your experience and background
• 15 min on why you want to join our team and your expectations, future plans
• 15 min Q&A
  
  
• 60-90 min Technical Interview  (May be more than 1)
• Technical Call
  
  
• 45-60 min Final Call
• 15 min discussion on results 
• 15 min CTC expectations / negotiations 
• 15 min closure
• 15 min buffer

• Experience in defining new architectures, design all layers of the solution, create architectural blueprints that can be used for final code development.
• Interface with client business/technical teams to understand complex requirements.
• Anticipate on technological evolutions(example use MySQL Lite not MS SQL, use C# not ASP, don't use JSF use Angular).
• Resolve technical issues.
• Bridge between Developers, Project Managers/Leads, and Client, ensuring smooth communication channel.
• Ensure quality of project implementation deployed.
• Provide technical guidance to projects/programs for complex components of a multiple technology suites.
• Ensuring documentation of the complete project architecture.
• Lead actions to determine root cause of problems and drive resolution.
• Participate in cross-functional work groups to assess business needs, develop a systems architecture strategy, and implementation plans.
• Leads work groups that are responsible for software development.
• Ensure that all components of the technical architecture are properly integrated and implemented by the development team.
• Coach the technical team in the development of the technical architecture and help them solve challenging technical problems
• Provide technical support and technical quality control throughout all stages of the project.
• Spearheads the development, implementation and communications of architecture roadmap strategies to ensure that systems are scalable, reliable, secure, supportable, and achieve.
• Identify existing architecture weaknesses and find opportunities for process reengineering and perform cost benefit analysis

• Time Management- Organizes own workload to achieve maximum productivity and completes work in a timely and professional manner. Handles multiple short and long term modules by proper planning while anticipating potential problems and planning for contingencies.
• Identify high-potential team members for next level positions and creating learning and development plans for them.
• Enable strong process in place and reducing dependencies on individual.

Technical Skills and Qualification

• Excellent knowledge of Web technologies, Java, Javascript, Contact center environment.
• Experience of current technologies including Open Source, J2EE (JSP, Servlet, JSP, etc.), web application development, web services (REST/SOAP/XML), Rich Internet Applications, messaging infrastructures and databases.
• Adaptability and willingness to learn new tools and applications.
• Should be comfortable for 40%-60% coding.
• Able to convert requirements into executable code
• 9 to 12 yrs experience
• Qualification: BE/B-Tech /MCA or any equivalent degree

Desirables

• Excellent written and verbal communication skill
• Ability to lead discussions with all levels of the organization and provide balanced information of an idea or communication of an issue regardless of written or verbal
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across project teams.
• Having Analytical and problem-solving
• Ability to translate complex requirements into functional and Technical architecture
• Experience managing the technology aspect of multiple complex projects
• Ability to think ahead and anticipate problems, issues and solutions and Assist team members in complex task
• Willing to take ownership and being accountable.
• Openness, communicates honestly, openly, and consistently.
• Positive Attitude encourages a positive rather than negative viewpoint.
• Integrity maintains the highest standard of personal conduct in performing all duties.
• Should be a good listener.
• Dependable, can be relied upon to get the job done.
• Able to avoid mistakes that could/should be anticipated.
• Should be able sense and grab the opportunities to innovate and improvise.
• Very high competence in presentation skills.
• Negotiator: Excellent negotiation skills which comes handy in hard selling new ideas/ new technical implementations etc.
• Risk Management: Should be able to take calculated risks in trying out new technical implementation avenues
• Able to communicate the org level vision to the team effectively

Summary:

Smart Joules is looking for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to drive the evolution of our technology platform (DeJoule) to make continuous energy optimization simple and profitable at scale. DeJoule is designed on the latest IOT and web technologies to continuously identify and correct for hidden inefficiencies in dynamic energy systems such as air conditioning and compressed air. It 1) collects data in real time from buildings and factories, 2) analyses real time and historical data using heuristic and machine learning algorithms to find hidden energy inefficiencies and optimum set points, and 3) continuously adjusts (controls) set points of various equipment installed in buildings and factories to minimize energy use. We are looking to build new capabilities in data-driven intelligence, user delight, universal compatibility and continuous optimization through full automation.

You will engage deeply with Smart Joules’ leadership and management team and customers to connect our software and its capabilities to our mission. The technology we build together will save 30% or more of the energy consumed in India’s most prominent buildings and factories that stand today and are yet to be built, and will displace the largest multi-nationals as the highest selling automation product in the Indian and other developing markets.

If you are passionate about stopping climate change, a believer in collaborative and multi-disciplinary innovation, capable of building and leading young and passionate technology teams, an expert in IoT and ready to commit yourself wholeheartedly to build the company that will manage the largest number of Joules in India by 2025, we’d like to meet you.

Overall Responsibilities:

• Build DeJoule into a product that can outcompete any other globally on automatic and continuous performance optimization at scale, user engagement and cost.
• Recruit, motivate, train and lead India’s #1 energy tech team.
• Strengthen the company culture around innovation and excellence so that DeJoule consistently remains ahead of the pack.
• Develop the company’s image as a global leader in the digital energy transition.

The Right Candidate:

• Is ready and hungry to work on the defining project of their professional career.
• Is able to cite specific experiences from their personal life and professional career where they have demonstrate that they have the ability to make tough decisions, to fight and win.
• Has 7+ years of experience building IOT & cloud technology platforms with mastery in System Design and Architecture, Database Administration, Data Structuring and Algorithms, Javascript frameworks (Angular.js, Node.js), AWS managed services (SNS,SQS, IoT core, Dynamo DB, Lambdas, Kinesis and others), Python and related technologies.
• Is humble and collaborative, with a deep-seated ambition to have a significant impact at a global scale.
• Has worked in a start-up or in start-up-like conditions with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

About Smart Joules:

Smart Joules is India’s leading energy efficiency company on a mission to stop climate change by making continuous energy optimization simple and profitable at scalable for buildings and factories. We have pioneered the servitization model in the energy efficiency space in India and established leadership position in the healthcare industry with long-term projects in almost all states. Our clients are saving up to 70% in energy costs and have modernized their facilities with industry-leading technologies without making any up-front investments.

Led by an MIT/Berkeley Alumnus, an award-winning engineer from the Indian Navy, and a financial wizard, our team of 100+ professionals has a comprehensive set of capabilities spanning project development, design, financing, execution, cutting-edge IOT technologies, analytics and operations. We have won national and international awards, including recognition as a “Champion of Change” by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Our financial supporters include Asian Development Bank, Sangam Ventures, Max Ventures & Industries, Raintree Family Office, Echoing Green, Harvard University, TATA Trusts, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, TATA Cleantech Capital, Yes Bank, World Bank, SIDBI and some of India’s most prominent business families.

We like to work hard and play hard. Inspired by MIT’s motto “Mens et Manus”, we believe in using our minds and hands to develop and utilize technology for practical application. If you are curious to learn more about us, visit our LinkedIn page and the links we have posted.

• Product development-oriented: leading the architecture and design of a multi-tenant, cloud-native platform that hosts the IoT and Analytics apps architecting integration engine with connectors to handle and consume structured and unstructured data from different sources (customers ERP systems, external meta-data, etc) designing frameworks to support Big Data Analytics and real-time actionability based on predictive ML models driving the development of company's IoT platform dashboard and mobile applications with support from UX consultant.
• Internal team-oriented: building and a mentoring team of software developers planning and managing project timelines towards meeting roadmap goals and customer deliverables driving the team towards a test-driven and documented codebase.
• Customer-facing: work with customer's technical team to understand requirements architect and draft solution proposals integrate with customers' existing systems.

Requirements:

• Customer experience-related software development projects.
• In-depth knowledge and hands-on experience of time-series (relational or NoSQL-based) databases.
• Experience in integrating multiple Big Data solutions and legacy database systems.
• Experience in designing high volume data chains, i.e. messaging queues, streaming, processing large amounts of structured and unstructured data for IoT eco-system.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise application frameworks like spring/apache software integration web services (SOAP/RESTful), ESB SDLC tools (Git, Automated Testing Frameworks) cloud platforms (Azure, AWS), and containers (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience in building Big Data, AI, Machine Learning analytics pipelines.
• Familiarity with security requirements in IoT space & wireless sensor networks is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement features spanning across systems in a manner that satisfies requirements of performance, scale, security and robustness
• Contribute to improvement of technology and execution processes in the company
• Collaborate in setting technology standards with technology leaders across the company
• Serve as a knowledge center on current and emerging technologies, and help train others when required
• Foster a strong technical culture by mentoring other engineers
• Keep up to date with the latest technologies, evaluate new tools

Relevant Experience and Qualifications 

• Demonstrated expertise in system-level design of large scale distributed systems on the Java stack, and experience with web services and service oriented architectures
• Solid experience with Spring (Core/Boot/Security/MVC/Data)
• Have 8 - 12  years of professional experience in software development.
• Extensive experience with modern open source systems including relational / non relational data stores and bigdata processing
• Experience with AWS stack, at least the common datastores and services 
• Experience with containerization technologies and concepts including Docker
• Basic knowledge about security concepts and secure coding
• Excellent analytical, conceptual and communication skills in spoken and written English.
• Experience leading projects developed across continents.

Great to have Experience and Qualifications 

• Knowledge of machine learning concepts, and some hands-on experience implementing machine learnt models
• Experience with infrastructure design for cloud based apps, especially AWS.
• Past experience with information and data security standards (PCI-DSS, ISO27000) very nice to have.