Head of Engineering Operations

Cambridge, MA · Job # 7556BK

Overview of the Role:

The engineering team is looking for a results-oriented person to establish our Engineering Operations capability. The ideal candidate will thrive in a fast-paced environment, have strong project management and organizational skills, be experienced with modern software development process and tracking tools including data analysis and reporting functions, be familiar with agile software development processes, and strong communications and people skills.  The Head of Engineering Operations reports to the SVP Engineering, and is a project management and reporting service resource to the individual development teams and the engineering department as a whole.  

The Head of Engineering Operations serves as a Chief-of-Staff to the SVP Engineering, and is accountable for managing the engineering department’s strategic internal and customer-facing workstreams, planning and tracking functions (financial, capacity, project), and other activities (e.g., training, administration, etc.).  This role is primarily focused on strategic outcomes and execution, including business planning, large multi-quarter development projects, long-term customer development streams, and operational reporting (to the field, executive management, and the board). The Head of Engineering Operations coordinates with Product Management to ensure product roadmaps and release plans are aligned to engineering level resourcing and task plans, and serves as the primary resource of “ground truth” for engineering planning and execution.  The Head of Engineering Operations coordinates with the Business Services Team on financial, training, and administrative matters across our multiple development sites. 

Results Orientation – The ideal candidate would have demonstrated the ability to work in world-class software development organization in a high-growth software company providing project management insights, analyses, and trade-offs.

Detailed and Organized – The ideal candidate would have demonstrated strong organizational skills and working with detailed information/reporting from modern development environment tools.  He/she will have shown the ability to generate deliverables that provide insights into the organization’s capacity and demand, identify and manage risk, support early detection of project execution issues, and provide fact-based information and analyses to various stakeholders. 

Able to Multi-task – The ideal candidate would have demonstrated the ability to multi-task across multiple strategic workstreams and deliverables, spanning financial planning, capacity planning, and project planning/execution. 

Main Responsibilities:

• Provide project management oversight and support for major internal and customer-facing work streams.

• Provide insights into engineering capacity, resource contention, the impact of future work (demand) on capacity, financial and skills planning, and trade-offs within the demand/capacity.

• Provide various analyses and reports, presentations, spreadsheets, to support fact-based situational awareness and decision-making within the engineering department.

• Work with development process planning and tracking tools for resources, tasks, and quality, to ensure data completeness and accuracy. 

Main Accountabilities:

• Project-level management and tracking of key workstreams.

• Source of record for engineering data and plans.

• Supporting fact-based analyses and decision-making and providing early warning indications of project execution issues. 

Required Skills and Experience:

• 5+ years of industry experience as software project manager.

• Experience with Agile Methods (Scrum), especially as it relates to project-level information and reporting.

• Strong organizational skills and comfort with detailed information, including financial, technical tasks and workstreams, and deliverables/action items.

• Self-motivated, driven, and results-oriented.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills.

• BS or BA in Management, Business, Computer Science or equivalent. 

Great to have Skills and Experience:

• High-tech software company experience, especially databases.

• Experience with specific development environment tools experience:

  • JIRA

  • Confluence (Wiki)

  • Bamboo