About the role

This role owns what is being built, as against what is already running. ContactVerse is pre-release across much of NEXXOS, with a large backlog of endpoints specified and not yet built, and a delivery organisation that has been moving quickly without much structure. You would own the forward half of engineering: new product and feature delivery, the path from requirement to release, and the developer experience that lets a small team move fast without breaking what is live.

What you will do

• Own new delivery. Product and feature delivery against the roadmap, across Core and the industry verticals.
• Own requirement to release. That what was specified is what shipped, and that the gap between the two is visible when it exists.
• Own developer experience. CI, environments, review and the local setup that determines whether a new joiner is productive in a day or a fortnight.
• Work hand in hand with Product Management. You own how it is built; they own what and why. That boundary only works if both sides respect it.
• Own estimation discipline. Endpoints carry a T-shirt size with a predefined allocation agreed at kick-off. Developers do not estimate individually, and dates are not renegotiated per ticket.
• Protect the live estate from new work. Migrations against live data and breaking changes are where new delivery goes wrong.
• Hire and grow the forward team. Including the shape of the pods and how work is allocated between them.
• Own technical debt deliberately. Decide what is taken on knowingly and what is paid down, rather than discovering it later.
• Report progress honestly. Against the schedule, with drift surfaced rather than absorbed.

Your first year

First 90 days. A delivery rhythm where what was specified is what ships, and the schedule matches the code.

By six months. Predictable release cadence, and a developer experience that makes a small team fast.

By twelve months. A forward engineering organisation that does not depend on heroics.

What you will bring

• Twelve years or more in engineering, including leading product delivery teams.
• Has worked where specification and build were owned by different people, and made it work.
• Strong on delivery mechanics: planning, allocation, review, release.
• Has introduced structure to a fast-moving team without slowing it to a halt.
• Experience of multi-service architectures and the coordination problems they create.
• Has managed managers as well as engineers.
• Technically credible with a team that is mostly early-career.
• Calm about change. The roadmap will move.

Nice to have

• Python, FastAPI and AWS.
• Experience of a product sold across multiple industry verticals from one platform.
• Has worked with a requirements estate held outside a tracker. In our case, workbooks.
• Experience of contractor-heavy teams.
• Has run a team through a first major release.

What you will work with

Python and FastAPI on AWS, GitHub Actions, Alembic migrations, services split by product and vertical, and a requirements estate held in workbooks that is in the process of being put on a better footing.

What this role is not

Not the live estate. That is the SVP Engineering. Your half is what is being built.

How we work

The team works to a UK-aligned pattern, with the main working overlap in the evening IST. These hours are indicative and may change as the business changes; any change would be discussed rather than imposed. Development happens on company-provided remote machines. Everything is remote and nobody is in an office.

We are a small company and we write things down. Decisions are recorded, corrections are made to the source rather than to the output, and status is expected to be honest even when it is unwelcome.

Compensation and what we offer

• A long-term incentive, discussed at offer stage for senior appointments.
• Fully remote working, with company-provided equipment where the role requires it.
• A role with unusual scope for its level, because the organisation is being built rather than joined.
• Direct access to the founders. There are no layers between this role and the people making the decisions.

How we will assess you

We assess against three or four weighted signals agreed before we read a single CV, rather than against years of experience or a list of tools. Expect four stages:

• Introductory conversation with our People team. About 30 minutes, covering the role, your background and what you are looking for. This first conversation may be with an AI assistant; you will be told at the time and may ask to speak to a person instead.
• Conversation with the hiring manager. About 60 minutes, going deep on what you have done and how you think.
• A working session on a real ContactVerse problem. About 90 minutes. Not a whiteboard exercise and not a take-home test you do unpaid in your evenings.
• Final conversation with the founders. Covering fit, expectations and how we would work together.

We aim to complete the process within three weeks and to give you a decision, with reasons, within three working days of the final stage.

Equal opportunity

ContactVerse is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications regardless of age, disability, gender identity or expression, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We select against the published signals for the role and nothing else. If you need an adjustment at any stage of the process, tell us and we will make it. It will not count against you.

Research consistently shows that some candidates apply only when they meet every criterion. If this role interests you and you meet most of what is listed, please apply.

How to apply

Write to career@contactverse.ai quoting reference POS-009, with your CV and a short note (a few paragraphs is plenty) on the part of this role you would most want to get your hands on, and why.