VP of Engineering

Climate change is the biggest existential threat we’ve ever faced. Trees and plants are critical to mitigating it and adapting to it.

Overstory aims to help solve the climate crisis by providing real-time intelligence about the planet’s vegetation powered by AI and satellite data. Today, Overstory provides real-time information and predictive insights to its utility and forestry customers based on high spatial and temporal resolution satellite data, mitigating wildfires and power outages.

By applying AI algorithms specialized in trees and vegetation, Overstory helps customers to predict grow-in and fall-in risks based on species, growth rate, weather, climate, and vitality. By facilitating predictive planning, verifying trimming cycles, and offering timely reports on vegetation management KPIs, customers can make informed decisions and take action.

About our team
We’re a group of 13 people from all over the world (Netherlands, Portugal, Indonesia, Italy, US, France, Colombia) based in the Netherlands (HQ) and the US. We’re a Seed-stage startup, backed by top climate tech investors including: Pale Blue Dot, Powerhouse Ventures, Techstars, MCJ Collective and Futuristic VC. We’re all united behind a big vision to help humanity and the planet.

About the role
The VP of Engineering (VPE) of Overstory leads the engineering team with a focus on execution and people management. The VPE ensures the technology is realized through excellence in both people and process. This role is all about structured and scalable execution.

• Execution-focused executive, puts the people, process and culture in place to excel at execution. Defines engineering OKRs and manages them.
• Delivery: planning and execution of features/products/projects.
• Makes decisions on day-to-day development trade-offs (simple versus complex fix, ship versus not ship).
• Engineering team management and senior stakeholder communication about status of projects.
• Day-to-day issue resolver in the engineering organization for things that are getting in the way of success
• Sets standards for software development methodologies and a high quality engineering culture.

At Overstory, the VPE is responsible for the following:

• Creating strong lines of communication in order to always know what is going on within the team, what motivates each person, and what each person is struggling with. Helping to define and execute engineering and company-wide OKRs.
• Having the overview of all current implementations and roll-outs, including the deadlines and what steps need to be taken by whom to get there.
• Implementing and structuring a process to drive the productivity of the engineering team, including sprints (or other similar planning approaches) and retrospectives.
• Leading discussions on requirements and requests from teams, and designing appropriate solutions together with the CTO, COO and CPO.
• Leading the ongoing development of the Overstory platform including architecture, technical roadmap, project plans, and budgets under the direction of the CTO & CEO.
• Hiring. Determining what is needed, building a strong, diverse engineering recruitment pipeline. Driving a structured and objective selection process to make the best hire for the role.

About you

Traits we value:

• Collaborative spirit: team above ego.
• Curiosity: excited about exploring and learning.
• Mission-driven: cares deeply about building great products that help tackle our climate crisis.
• Organization: strong project management skills, including the ability to plan, schedule, and successfully carry out multiple projects at the same time to successful conclusion.
• Empathy: Able to attract, mentor, and develop staff to ensure skills align and adapt to the mission and business goals. Inspires and motivates others by example, and achieves positive outcomes through a balance of strong leadership and open collaboration.
• A clear communicator.

Experience we value:

• You have managed a team of 20+ people (and enjoyed it!)
• You have been in startup environments.
• You have a deep understanding of software development processes (git flow, task management amongst devs, code management, technical debt, refactoring).
• Experience working with machine learning engineers.
• You have built teams before - recruitment, selection, onboarding.
• You have managed distributed teams.
• Strong familiarity with Agile methodology.

Our tech stack

• Python 3;
• Jupyter Notebooks, nbdev;
• PyTorch, fastai;
• Kubernetes, Docker;
• GCP, AWS Cloud;
• Numpy, Pandas, Dask, Xarray, Zarr, Geopandas;
• STAC, Intake;
• Redis, BigQuery, Postgress GIS.

What you get

• To be a part of truly mission-driven work that reduces forest fires, protects earth’s natural resources and reverses climate change.
• The chance to build something from scratch and put your mark on it.
• Creating a product that solves real climate-related problems — and is a joy to use — is the exciting opportunity that is in your hands.
• Generous stock options and competitive salary.
• Other benefits like remote working budget, educational budget and time to develop skills relevant to tackling the climate crisis.
• Freedom and responsibility like you couldn’t believe. The business will only move forward because of you.
• To be surrounded by an awesome, vibrant, smart team who have each other's back and believe in a culture of openness, tolerance and respect.

Diversity & Inclusion
We place enormous value on diversity and inclusion with regards to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age, education, disability, disciplines and skillsets. We believe that the best ideas emerge when people with different perspectives and approaches work together on a problem. We want our team to feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work and sharing their most creative (and sometimes crazy!) ideas.