Hi there :)

At Synthesia, we are looking for our first dedicated Engineering Manager/Director of Engineering to join our growing team.

About Synthesia

Synthesia is the world's first AI video generation platform. We believe the future of media is synthetic, and we are on a mission to turn cameras into code and make everyone a creator. Check out our brand video. We are also one of Europe's unicorns.

In five years or so, we hope to be able to make a full-length movie on our laptops. Would you like to help us get there?

About the Team

We launched Synthesia STUDIO in 2020, and both our company and product have seen remarkable growth since. Over the last two years, our engineering team expanded from 8 to around 50 engineers. We will need to double the team soon if we are to deliver everything that we set out to.

Our engineering department is currently led by the VP of Product and Engineering, who reports directly to one of the co-founders. The new member will have full ownership over the engineering part.

Our team operates on a model inspired by HashiCorp, utilizing Product Requirement Documents and Request for Comment Documents. We don’t follow SCRUM, do not have tickets or Jira, do not set dates, deadlines, QA, or have fixed release cycles. Code is deployed multiple times a day, we leverage feature flags, and maximize engineers' ownership over their work. The question is: can this approach scale with 100 engineers? We’re hoping you'll help us answer that.

About the Role

This management position involves leading other managers, offering a broad scope within a user-facing product that’s quickly attracting more users. We’re seeking guidance on potential oversights and technical leadership for scaling our product. Implementing a structured career progression and levelling is on the horizon, as currently, everyone is a 'Senior Software Engineer'.

We aim to establish a solid engineering foundation and maintain our quick delivery pace.

This role can be remote in Europe or hybrid in London, Zurich, Munich, Amsterdam, or Copenhagen. The majority of our engineering team works from home and is spread across European time zones.

About You

You're ideally someone who has significantly impacted web product development as a software engineer before moving into management. Priority will be given to those with experience in companies where software is the main product. Given our rapid growth, we’re looking for someone who has already navigated the challenges of managing a team of over 75 engineers.

Your track record should reflect a strong engineering culture and the development of products that users adore. We need a pragmatic leader who can find the perfect middle ground between avoiding excessive technical debt on the one hand and overengineering on the other. Experience building high-performing teams and hands-on hiring is crucial.

This role is both a technical leadership and management challenge. Unique profiles like this are rare, so if you fit this description, we’re eager to chat.

Ok, but this is a start-up, right?

Correct. A start-up with 10 years of runway, 50 thousand B2B clients, very close to profitability working on the best generative AI video editor on the web. 

Reach out for more information.

P.S. This role is not published on our webpage, please reach out directly to svg@synthesia.io