VP Engineering

Copia Automation brings modern developer tools and resiliency to industrial automation. Our product provides Git-based source control for automation professionals as well as state of the art backup and recover technology critical to operational uptime and cyber resiliency. We are a well-funded startup and with a growing list of happy customers throughout the industrial space. As a Copia employee, you’ll solve challenging, unique, and meaningful problems alongside passionate coworkers, while we change the way everything gets built. The VP of Engineering ensures that the Copia Automation software team delivers with speed (as measured by consistently hitting mutually agreed upon milestones and deadlines) and quality (as measured through reliability and uptime), and that consistency of delivery continues as we add headcount, product, and technical scope to the team. What you'll do: DELIVER BEST-IN-CLASS RELIABILITY, PERFORMANCE, AND SECURITY. Copia has differentiated itself by building a solution that not only solves for the product requirements of the space, but does so at high production quality. --> Continue to deliver on best-in-class uptime. This is measured through at least 3 9s of uptime in our public cloud as well as feature level stability. --> Continue to deliver on best-in-class security. This is measured through continued SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, product delivery with secure-by-design methodology, and prevention of and timely response to security concerns and identified vulnerabilities. --> Continue to deliver on best-in-class performance. This is measured by performance for core workflows (such as rendering and backup) that is equal to or faster than other industrial ventures. DELIVER ON THE NEXT GENERATION OF COPIA PRODUCT ROADMAP. Copia has established itself in the industry with a source control and backup solution that are quickly becoming the industry standard. As we scale our GTM we need to build the next set of core product features and deliver on our vision. --> Ensure consistent product delivery. Ensure consistency of product and feature delivery for the engineering team. This is measured through established milestones, consistent communication around blockers, and hitting delivery dates. --> Maintain platform quality standards. Ensure that new product delivery doesn’t create substantial technical debt that impacts future product delivery. This is measured through platform level deliverables that tie to developer productivity and overall platform uptime. --> Incubate and deliver technical unlocks. Ensure that we incubate technical insights from engineering in order to unlock new product opportunity and platform scale. This involves engineering driving user‑facing product roadmap through technical innovation and capability unlocks. This can be directly tied to revenue and retention. BUILD AND SCALE AN ENGINEERING TEAM THAT ATTRACTS AND RETAINS THE BEST TALENT. Copia’s engineering team historically has high retention rates and high offer acceptance rates that have enabled us to bring together a group of very smart engineers to work on very hard problems. We want to continue to build on this foundation to establish a culture that can attract top individual contributors and managers. --> Recruit and hire A players. “Recruiting is continuous even if hiring is not.” We should be constantly looking for and building relationships with top engineers to quickly fill roles as they appear. --> Retain the best engineers. We want to ensure our best engineers (as measured through performance reviews and feedback) continue to stay in the business and deliver value. --> Continuously support and upskill team members. Successful Copians are curious and constantly growing. We want to build and maintain a culture of encouraging learning, building new skills, and supporting maturation at the company. --> Manage out B and C players. We want to build systems and a culture that rejects engineers that are not at a high quality level. A players like to work with A players and hire other A players. DELIVER STRATEGIC UPDATES TO THE LEADERSHIP TEAM, COMPANY, AND BOARD. VP Engineering is an executive leadership role that requires significant and high quality communication. --> Leadership communication. The leadership team is the “first team” in that they are directly responsible for the delivery of the business. The VP of Engineering owns engineering as a function of this team. This means that the VP Engineering will own company level KRs that they report on the progress of weekly to the rest of the leadership team. They’ll also participate in company‑wide strategic decisions. --> Company communication. The VP Engineering is responsible for telling the story of engineering execution to the company and also communicating how the overall company strategy impacts engineering workstreams. They are a critical bridge from the CEO and leadership team to the company and help convert the strategic narrative to day‑to‑day execution. --> Board communication. The VP Engineering will participate in board meetings quarterly and communicate how engineering impacts the business and unlocks value. PRODUCT + TECHNICAL VISION. The VP Engineering will work closely with the CEO to articulate, evolve, and deliver on our product + technical vision. For a product as technical as ours, the insights from the engineering team and capability unlocks are a critical part of determining what is possible. In this way, the VP Eengineering wears a product hat and needs to work closely with the CEO and Pproduct org to determine what is possible for the business. What you'll need: Experience in an engineering leadership position, preferably at a company that has gone from Series A to C. Strong security background. Speed. Start-ups live and die on engineering delivery speed. Empowers engineers to quickly make decisions and drive the engineering team to productive, outcome driven decisions (avoid Yak Shaving and Bikeshedding). Efficiency. Understands the exact resources necessary to deliver business outcomes. Hires appropriately and ties new headcount to clear business impact and new product delivery. Organization. Organized and builds adequate process and invests in appropriate tooling to ensure consistency of project delivery. Attention to detail. Understands why engineering decisions are getting made and can parse through and articulate critical technical details that impact delivery. Ability to hire A players. Can recruit and hire A players to the engineering team. The best people want to work for them. Flexibility and adaptability. Can quickly pivot and update priors based off of new information. Doesn’t get stressed in a rapidly evolving environment. Low ego to previously stated opinion. Aligns with Copia cultural values. Low ego, hypothesis driven + empirical, outcome driven, gets the customer to success, optimistic, and builds organizational trust. $240,000 - $324,000 a year Benefits include unlimited PTO, employer‑subsidized healthcare through Aetna, commuter benefits, in‑office lunches, and more Full‑time, permanent employees also receive generous equity packages. Come join us Copia is growing extraordinarily fast Join a best‑in‑class start‑up with huge amounts of upside and impact. Our headquarters is in New York City. #J-18808-Ljbffr