VP, Software Engineering

About Us 

KINESSO is the technology-driven performance marketing agency that sits at the very heart of IPG Mediabrands, providing actionable growth for both our agency partners and clients. We turn ‘action’ into ‘outcome’ for our clients, leveraging our unique capabilities in optimization, analytics, AI, and experimentation. KINESSO has brought together the collective power of what was formerly Matterkind, Reprise, and Kinesso under one collective entity that will serve as the most powerful delivery engine in the industry. We have extensive offerings spanning performance marketing and data and technology. Fuelled by a deep understanding of consumer behaviour, we offer an end-to-end engine of planning and optimization while also delivering on data-driven strategy for social platforms, actionable growth in e-commerce, and creating curated marketplaces specific to each client’s function and needs. The company has more than 6,000 employees operating in more than 60 countries. Learn more at www.KINESSO.com 

Role Description 

For several of our AI planning products we are looking for a senior software engineering manager. This role has direct responsibility for a set of advertising planning product relied on by Interpublic Group agency users. You will be leading two or more teams, each with a tech lead and up to 10 software engineers (FE, BE, DE & MLOps) and data scientists.

You will work closely with our Head of Data science and the product leads to ensure timely delivery of our modelling products.

This position reports to the SVP, Engineering, Planning & Optimization. It will be primarily remote, though you are also welcome to work in our London office.

The teams use a diverse set of tech stacks (Angular, React, Python, C#, Java), with a back-end preference for Python given the data heaviness of the applications. Our application largely run on AWS in Kubernetes clusters. The development teams have diverse localization but are primarily in France and Poland.

The role is primarily hands-off, but some hands-on work might be required. Experience in marketing/advertising is not required.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: Provide strategic leadership to multiple engineering teams, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and objectives.
• Technical Excellence: Uphold and drive technical excellence, ensuring the engineering teams adhere to established coding standards and adopt best practices and technologies.
• Project Oversight: Oversee the planning, execution, and delivery of complex, large-scale engineering projects, ensuring are delivered on time.
• Team Development: Mentor, grow, and lead engineering teams, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Stakeholder Management: Engage with stakeholders across the organization, ensuring transparent communication regarding project status, challenges, and milestones.
• Process Optimization: Drive process optimization and continuous improvement initiatives, enhancing engineering processes for optimal performance and scalability.
• Recruitment and Scaling: Play a crucial role in hiring, onboarding, and scaling engineering teams, ensuring alignment with organizational growth and objectives.
• Quality Assurance: Ensure the delivery of high-quality, reliable, and scalable software solutions by instilling a strong focus on quality assurance across all engineering teams.

Required Skills & Experience

• Experience in a Senior Leadership Software Engineering, ideally coming from a managerial role.
• Experience in building web application using technologies like Angular or React.js required.
• Strong knowledge of Python, knowledge of Java is a plus.
• Must have experience working with cloud platforms like AWS, GCP or Azure. We prefer AWS and experience with AWS services like SNS, SQS and knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD processes.
• Experience with Agile and Scrum methodologies.
• Strong technical background in software development methodologies, processes, and best practices. You are an expert in system design and microservices architectures.
• Proven experience leading, managing, and delivering complex engineering projects.
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor, develop, and lead teams, handle performance reviews and manage team objectives and outcomes holding teams accountable.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Experience in working with remote teams and geographically distributed team management
• Experience in designing team org structure and managing budgets.
• Experience building AI or data driven products is a strong plus.
• Experience in hiring, building, and scaling engineering teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to make data-driven decisions.

Employee Transparency 

At IPG Mediabrands, we celebrate differences and believe this makes us stronger. IPG Mediabrands is an equal-opportunity employer and is committed to championing an inclusive culture that provides a sense of belonging for all our employees. We do not discriminate against any applicant based on age, disability, race, colour, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, belief, marital status or any other characteristic protected by law. 

Please reach out to our Talent Inclusion Specialist Jess at [email protected] if you would like to have a confidential conversation regarding any adjustments that would ensure our recruitment process is accessible for you. Please note requesting a reasonable adjustment will not affect your application. 

THE PERKS 

We aim to provide all our people with a supportive and fun work environment where you can develop your full potential and benefit from the broad range of opportunities within the agency. When you join us, we want to make sure you feel valued – and that you are rewarded for your fantastic work. So, we also offer a range of benefits:  

• Flexi–leave, with 25 days annual leave to be taken as the minimum. In addition to your holiday entitlement, the office usually closes between Christmas & New Year  
• Free breakfast and free lunch  
• Early finish Fridays 
• Core Hours (Mon-Thurs, flexible start/finish times)   
• Retail discounts 
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice car scheme 
• Wellbeing programme, including Headspace & flu jabs 
• Interest-free season ticket loan  
• Paid time off for Volunteering  
• Group Income Protection  
• Life Assurance  
• Private Medical Insurance or Health Cash Plan (dependent on level)  
• Group Personal Pension Plan with matched contributions from 3-6%  
• Generous Parental Leave & Pay   
• Independent mortgage advice  
• Financial education  
• Employee Assistance Programme  
• Free eye tests  
• Flexible benefits including Dental, Travel insurance, Cycle to Work, Gym Discounts and many more!