VP of Engineering at Litnerd | Y Combinator

We are looking for an amazing VP of Engineering to help keep up with Litnerd's influx of user growth across schools. This is a mission critical role and the individual we are looking for will be coming in at the ground level of a fast-growing startup with strong product-market fit, and impressive traction/revenue growth. Litnerd’s mission is to inspire young people to fall in love with reading. We provide programs for students and teachers that make reading (and learning in general) fun. We do this by bringing books to life by reenacting the book as if you are watching your favorite TV show or episode. 1 in 8 children in America grow up without learning how to read. 41% of 4th grade students are reading at a grade 2 level. In other words, we are failing nearly half of our nation’s students before they ever graduate elementary school. Furthermore, decline in literacy and reading proficiency increases amongst Title 1 schools socio-economically disadvantaged communities. By joining our team, you will be part of our mission to change that! Litnerd is a contracted vendor with the largest education district in America. Our program is part of in-classroom education and designated school reading time. We have been growing aggressively at 60% MoM and have served over 14,000 students across schools. Litnerd Engineering team is responsible for empowering school systems across the country to help foster healthy reading habits amongst students. We’re building a powerful LMS platform for teachers and students. As a member of this team, you'll be at the center of product innovation. By joining the team at this stage, you will have a mission critical role to play in the development of Litnerd’s product roadmap. DESIRED EXPERIENCE & SKILLS: - Lead our engineering organization. - Work with Product team to determine product roadmap and translate that into engineering execution plan. - Spec out tickets for junior engineers to enable them for success from execution standpoint and with deep technical considerations in mind. - Committed to supporting a diverse, inclusive, and collaborative work environment. - 8+ years of programming experience, with at least 4 years of management experience. - Balance business needs/speed with accumulation of technical debt. - Anticipate changes, challenges, and efficiencies to steer the organization on track and ahead of timelines. - Set engineering organizational goals to level up and set high standards for our entire organization. - Very comfortable working in a React, Vue, Javascript and Node.js environment. - Work with CEO to define hiring and scaling plan for engineering and data organizations and actively take part in engineer recruiting. - Team manager and builder. - Conduct 1-1s with engineering reports. - Startup experience (Series C or earlier), demonstrating that you can thrive in our fast-paced startup environment. - Experience scaling teams anywhere from 5 to 30 engineers. - (Preferred) Ability to attract top talent, including leveraging contacts in your network. - Excellent communication skills and proven ability to articulate customer and technical requirements with all stakeholders. - Ability to write clean, readable code that performs at scale. - Passion for fixing our broken K-12 education system!! BONUS POINTS FOR: Understanding of how data is used in Elementary School education. Experience managing a remote distributed team. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Competitive salary range + equity package (3.0% – 7.0% equity).