Director of Engineering

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Kipsu is rooted in a simple, yet profound goal: Elevate service professionals to the center of the customer experience, transforming transactional interactions into fully-developed relationships. As one of the Twin Cities’ leading tech companies, Kipsu has cultivated a reputation for strong company culture, providing exemplary service to its customer partners, and investing in the growth of their team members. Kipsu was recognized by Star Tribune as a top small company workplace for 2021. This role is crucial to the significant, sustainable growth and continued global expansion forecasted for Kipsu’s near future. 

THE OPPORTUNITY

Kipsu is seeking a Director of Engineering to join our Engineering team. In this role, you’ll play a unique and interesting role in a high growth, leading edge Minneapolis based software company. As Director of Engineering, you will report to our VP of Engineering and lead the engineering teams to drive delivery of our new capabilities and enhancements to our industry leading SaaS software platform.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

Your responsibilities will include:

• Participating in the strategic planning for our Engineering squads
• Leading the day-to-day delivery of Kipsu’s core software applications, including its web and mobile applications and the back-end services that support them.
• Managing the work plan for core application software delivery, including capacity planning, prioritization, status reporting and issue resolution
• Working with our company leadership and product leader to prioritize work and optimize engineering output
• Managing projects to meet deadlines, driving accountability and communication back to key customer facing stakeholders on your teams’ portfolio of projects
• Identifying areas for improvement in the development processes and support activities to improve them; work to implement agile methodologies where it makes sense
• Helping build the engineering team, crafting role definition and participating in hiring and selection
• Overseeing three to five engineering managers and their respective teams
• Monitoring metrics like code quality, productivity, etc. to ensure that we are achieving our goals.
• Identifying deficiencies in the development processes and support activities to improve them.
• Delivering regular updates to relevant stakeholders on your portfolio of work
• Facilitating stand-ups, retrospectives, plannings, etc.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We will favor candidates that have the following characteristics and background:

• 10 years of experience
• 5 years of experience in a leadership role
• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field; a Master’s degree a plus
• Based in the Twin Cities and available to engage with our locally based team
• Someone with deep web application and mobile development experience
• An enthusiastic individual that enjoys developing and mentoring managers to drive performance
• A hands on technology leader comfortable engaging with business and technical leaders to identify objectives, weigh competing approaches and drive consensus on engineering priorities
• Able to see the big picture beyond the Engineering team, taking into account customer expectations, company goals and external pressures
• Someone who thinks intentionally about what makes a productive, inclusive and positive Engineering culture and work as part of a leadership team within Engineering to reinforce, reassess, and improve how we operate as a team
• High energy, high achieving, professional, and ready to come in every day and make an impact
• A demonstrated capacity to collaborate
• Desire to learn and develop within the software (SaaS) space
• Experience in a startup company is a plus but not required
• Willing and eager to constantly test and improve everyday

WHAT MAKES KIPSU DIFFERENT

• We’re a solid, stable, and growing company, and we enthusiastically embrace our founding startup spirit– everyone pitching in and working to the same goals together as a team.
• Our culture– We have a team of highly motivated colleagues who are all in it together. We all succeed as one, and we all learn from our mistakes holding our interdependence in high regard. 
• Our unique philosophy– we bootstrapped this company ourselves and are in it for the long-term. There is a distinct sense of purpose and ownership at Kipsu as we do things on our own terms.
• Remarkable growth– with nearly a decade of advancement, we continue to accelerate. It’s an exciting time to be here.

One last thing – At Kipsu, we believe that our values, success, and future as a leader in our industry require a vibrant and diverse workforce. This is one of the many challenges we seek to solve, and we are intentional and active in recruiting talent of all identities and building an environment that is inclusive of all backgrounds. We need your contribution to our team. Consider rolling up your sleeves and joining us on our journey and let us know if we can make any accommodations to better empower you.