What are the responsibilities and job description for the Head of Software Engineering, Bellwether position at X, The Moonshot Factory?
About The Team
Our team – Bellwether – operates at the intersection of machine learning tools (including LLMs and traditional ML), geospatial data, and pressing issues with enterprise customers, governments, and more. Our current focus is on severe weather: the manifestations of climate change, such as wildfires. We aim to use a wide range of data and analytics to better understand and predict what these events could mean for communities and businesses across the globe. We do this through the detection and classification of the features and patterns of the natural and built worlds, the application of cutting-edge machine learning, and the redesign of the full geo-ML workflow. This work extends into development and production-level work as well, as Bellwether also has a number of products that are live with customers. The result: tools and models that allow a wide range of industries to better leverage earth observation insights. As our work evolves, we are exploring how forthcoming technologies like foundation models and agents have the ability to provide additional acceleration of progress in this domain.
About The Role / Position Overview
The Head of Software Engineering role is pivotal in defining and executing Bellwether's technology strategy.
You will manage a growing team of engineers to develop and maintain the team’s full technology stack (and evolving ML models and approaches, inclusive of LLMs). You have not only the technical expertise to take on and provide technical leadership to major projects, but also manage and grow its team of engineers. Operating with equal parts curious exploration and speed of execution, our team is building novel solutions at the intersections of geospatial data, machine learning, and risk -- and as a manager, you have the expertise to guide the way that fosters professional growth while delivering for our customers.
As a the Head of Software Engineering, you manage the project’s goals, contribute to product strategy and help develop your team. This includes fostering collaboration with other SWE teams across the X and Alphabet, in areas such as information retrieval, artificial intelligence, distributed computing, large-scale system design, geo data, networking, security, user interface design, and more. You not only optimize your own code but make sure engineers are able to optimize theirs as well.
How You Will Make 10x Impact
Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.
Our team – Bellwether – operates at the intersection of machine learning tools (including LLMs and traditional ML), geospatial data, and pressing issues with enterprise customers, governments, and more. Our current focus is on severe weather: the manifestations of climate change, such as wildfires. We aim to use a wide range of data and analytics to better understand and predict what these events could mean for communities and businesses across the globe. We do this through the detection and classification of the features and patterns of the natural and built worlds, the application of cutting-edge machine learning, and the redesign of the full geo-ML workflow. This work extends into development and production-level work as well, as Bellwether also has a number of products that are live with customers. The result: tools and models that allow a wide range of industries to better leverage earth observation insights. As our work evolves, we are exploring how forthcoming technologies like foundation models and agents have the ability to provide additional acceleration of progress in this domain.
About The Role / Position Overview
The Head of Software Engineering role is pivotal in defining and executing Bellwether's technology strategy.
You will manage a growing team of engineers to develop and maintain the team’s full technology stack (and evolving ML models and approaches, inclusive of LLMs). You have not only the technical expertise to take on and provide technical leadership to major projects, but also manage and grow its team of engineers. Operating with equal parts curious exploration and speed of execution, our team is building novel solutions at the intersections of geospatial data, machine learning, and risk -- and as a manager, you have the expertise to guide the way that fosters professional growth while delivering for our customers.
As a the Head of Software Engineering, you manage the project’s goals, contribute to product strategy and help develop your team. This includes fostering collaboration with other SWE teams across the X and Alphabet, in areas such as information retrieval, artificial intelligence, distributed computing, large-scale system design, geo data, networking, security, user interface design, and more. You not only optimize your own code but make sure engineers are able to optimize theirs as well.
How You Will Make 10x Impact
- Mentor and manage technical team members
- Intelligently and strategically use LLMs to further the project’s goals
- Collaborate cross-functionally to drive the vision behind Machine Learning solutions and back end infrastructure
- Create and develop prototypes, drafting technical and design documents as necessary
- Provide strong frameworks and guidance for the execution of production-ready code and discern when a focused, hackathon-style approach is most effective for specific, intractable problems
- Engage with external partners to prioritize and incorporate feedback
- 10 years of experience in a hands-on technical role
- Experience using large language models for real applications
- Back-end / full-stack engineering experience in a production environment
- 5 years experience in ML/AI (sourcing and processing data to production pipelines)
- Experience liaising with and collaborating directly with customers
- Experience in unstructured work environments with rapidly changing requirements and limited oversight - essentially a start-up or early-stage company experience
- Proven team leadership track record - building and managing engineering teams, setting aggressive goals, and leading complex cross-functional projects.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Experience founding or being involved in an early stage startup
- Experience working with a wide variety of geospatial data (ok if you don’t, but you should be up for a steep learning curve!)
Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.