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Head of Engineering

Lead engineering at a fast-growing start-up, building software for nature recovery.

Summary

  • UK-based, remote team with regular in-person meet-ups (candidates must be based in the UK)
  • £Competitive + share options, commensurate with a senior role at a start-up
  • Work directly tackling the nature and climate crises
  • Hands-on engineering leadership of a small, growing team

An introduction from Verna's Co-CEO

About Verna

We're building the global insight and management platform for nature programmes, enabling our users to radically accelerate nature recovery worldwide.

Corporates, public bodies, and NGOs are allocating hundreds of billions for nature recovery. But their work is held back by the unique challenges of nature programmes. This work requires many people and organisations to collaborate over multiple decades. Users have to make difficult decisions, on the basis of cognitively challenging analysis, applied to data that is complex, fragmented, disputed, and incomplete.

Software can make a revolutionary impact on this problem. Verna builds products that help users to plan, deliver, and assure nature recovery. Our first product, Mycelia, has become the leading software solution for the Biodiversity Net Gain methodology, and is used by over 100 organisations across more than 10,000 nature projects. We're now developing our second product, with a global focus, working closely with multi-nationals who can achieve a step-change in nature action.

We're VC-backed and revenue-generating, giving us a strong foundation from which to pursue our mission.

Role

We're looking for an exceptional engineering leader to head up our software development team.

As we grow, we're adopting the industry model (e.g. used at AWS and Stripe) of separating technology direction from engineering operations: our CTO will lead on what we build, with this new role leading on how we build it.

You will own all aspects of how Verna builds our products – managing engineers, optimising delivery, and turning product and research direction into robust software that users love. This role reports directly to Matthew Brown, Verna's co-founder and Co-CEO. You will be part of our Leadership Team, alongside our other Co-CEO, our CTO, and our Director of Ecology.

This is a hands-on role in a small and agile team. Good people management will be vital, but you'll also be close to the work – working through hard problems, leading architecture conversations, and personally shaping how the team uses AI day-to-day.

We're a small, well-funded team building something ambitious. This means you'll get the autonomy and impact of a start-up, with the stability of a company that has strong revenue and years of runway.

Responsibilities

You will own how Verna builds, leading the engineering team to deliver the product vision at pace.

To achieve this, your responsibilities will include:

  • Recruit, lead, manage, and mentor the engineering team to ensure high performance, productivity, and cultural alignment. The team is currently 5 engineers and 1 designer, which we expect to grow further this year.
  • Own engineering delivery, translating company priorities into actionable engineering plans which are delivered with focus and pace.
  • Own the operational health of Verna's software products, managing the architecture, codebase, infrastructure, and other technical choices to ensure scalability, security, stability, and business continuity.
  • Own Verna's approach to AI in engineering, keeping the team at the forefront of engineering practice, with good judgement about benefits and risks.
  • Represent Verna externally, for example on AI in engineering, Verna's approach to engineering delivery, and recruitment-focused profile-raising.

We operate as a remote team, with London office bases available. The whole team meets in person every quarter, somewhere in Central or Southern England, with travel and accommodation provided by Verna.

Our approach to AI

AI is reshaping software, and it opens up opportunities for nature that were previously impossible. If you want to know more about Verna's attitude to AI and the environment, read our article on Why an environmental company uses AI – and why we'd be wrong not to.

We aim to make the most of AI both in our products, and in how we build them. We expect engineers to be thoughtful and fluent users of AI in their daily work: knowing when it accelerates them, when it misleads, and how to stay in command of the code they ship. This doesn't mean we value AI skills over engineering fundamentals: it means the opposite. Strong engineers and strong leaders get more from AI tools.

About you

This role will suit experienced engineering leaders looking for the challenge, autonomy, and impact of a hands-on role in a mission-driven start-up.

You might be an existing CTO or VP / Head / Director of Engineering, or an exceptional engineering manager ready for the next challenge.

We are looking for:

  • Mission-driven: You are motivated by the impact of your work on nature recovery.
  • Leadership experience: Track record of leading diverse engineering teams to achieve high quality at fast pace.
  • Technical expertise: Background as an expert software engineer, comfortable across the stack, in multiple languages/paradigms, and with a range of architectures and infrastructures. Our primary stack is Elixir/Phoenix, running on AWS; you don't need prior experience with these exact elements, but you need to demonstrate the ability to become expert in any language or technique.
  • Technical judgement and leadership: Able to lead sound decisions on product and team set-up, including architecture, infrastructure, tooling, and processes.
  • Delivery process optimisation: Leveraging the latest and best techniques – including the evolving opportunities from AI – to enable teams to deliver fast while maintaining quality.
  • People focus: You know that getting the best out of your team requires understanding each member and their individual characteristics, genuinely caring about them, and supporting them to succeed.

Like ecosystems, teams are more vibrant, innovative, and resilient when they are more diverse. We welcome applications from everyone.

How to apply

To apply, please fill in the application form.

The next step, for candidates taken forward, is a 20-minute intro call with Matthew Brown. After that, there are two video-call interview stages, followed by references and a final in-person meeting in London with co-founders Matthew Brown and Rafi Cohen. We aim to give candidates feedback after each stage within days, and to complete the end-to-end process for a candidate within a few weeks.

If you would like to ask any questions before deciding whether to apply, you can email careers@verna.earth with subject line "Head of Engineering".