Tech Lead

  • Full-time

Company Description

Poplar (https://poplar.studio) is on a mission to democratise the creation of augmented reality content. Through our community of 1700+ AR creators, our platform has enabled the production of amazing augmented reality experiences for major brands including Universal Music, Sony Music, Fox, Disney, L’Oréal, King, and Speedo amongst many others (see https://poplar.studio/showcase/).

Poplar just raised $2.6m ($3.5m to date) and was recently named one of the top 100 fast-growth new UK businesses launched in the last five years (The Startups 100 2020 - https://startups.co.uk/startups-100/2020/startups-100-2020/).

Job Description

We’re looking for a Tech Lead to join our growing team based in London and help build out our marketplace platform that connects customers to our community of creators and orchestrates the process of building AR experiences. You’ll be joining at a pivotal moment for the business, building pioneering services in the exciting immersive reality sector as we scale up. Working closely with the leadership of a fast-paced startup, you’ll have a big influence on the growth of the engineering team, the technology decisions that are made and the strategy employed by the business. You’ll primarily be working on building features that allow our clients, creators and internal team to project manage and collaborate on AR campaigns, along with some bespoke 3D and AR technology.

We are looking for someone who is passionate about helping others to fulfil their potential. You will probably have line managed software engineers and handled conversations around growth and progression. While you are capable of taking a more managerial role as the company grows, you are a collaborative hands-on coder with a breadth of skills and knowledge, both technical and non-technical, to bring to the table. You are a clear communicator with an influential and inspiring presence. You are a technical visionary with high standards, but a pragmatist when it comes to delivering.

This is a great opportunity to join a small but ambitious team in a fast-moving industry with an experienced founding team, strong backing (Fuel Ventures, Founders Factory, Haatch Ventures, Ascension Ventures, Super Ventures) and an array of exciting clients.

Location: London, UK
Role Type: Permanent
Reporting to: CTO
Salary: £80,000-90,000 depending on experience + equity

Qualifications

Key Responsibilities

  • Building an open, curious, tolerant and ambitious engineering team focused on growth, rapid iteration and achieving successful outcomes.

  • Developing repeatable working practices to efficiently deliver high-quality software at a sustainable pace.

  • Leading the development of our platforms and technology to ensure its robustness, scalability and secureness by contributing code, writing documentation and encouraging collaboration amongst the product team.

  • Managing the delivery of features in accordance with the product strategy, striking the right balance between theoretical and pragmatic approaches while following agile principles.

  • Taking a lead role as a representative of the engineering team to internal team members, management, the board and externally.

Highly Desirable

  • 5+ years experience in engineering roles with management experience

  • Excellent communication and product-thinking skills with a holistic understanding of what makes a successful platform

  • Excellent problem-solving and technical design abilities

  • Strong leadership skills and proactive approach

  • Experience with PHP, Laravel, AWS, SQL and relational databases

  • Experience with front-end languages and JS frameworks e.g. TypeScript, Vue, React, Angular

  • Interest in Augmented Reality

  • Understanding of cloud-based platforms/microservices

  • Understanding of how to operate effectively in an agile environment and how to empower the team to increase velocity

Additional Information

What We Offer

 

  • Flexible working hours: we care about getting the job done more than the exact hours you’re at your desk.

  • Flexible working conditions: you will be working from home until the end of the year 2020, then you will be offered to work with the team at a central London location while being able to work from home 1-3 days TBD.

  • Equity - we believe employees should share in the success of the business.

  • Fun and supportive culture - we firmly believe in fostering a positive work environment, which means having fun as a team (https://poplar.studio/about-poplar/) while challenging ourselves.

  • Support for community projects - we believe volunteering and community activities shouldn’t come out of your 25 days’ holiday allowance. For example, our CEO is a Trustee of Save the Children UK and our CTO runs a music project that raises funds for charities.

  • Inspiring surroundings - our previous office was filled with green life, but we also take the time to run offsites elsewhere in London and abroad.

  • Opportunity to learn rapidly - you’ll be working with experienced media tech pioneers in a fast-paced company and industry.

  • Dog-friendly environment - just ask our office dogs, Indiya and Flip.

Our Values

  • We are futurists. Simply put, we believe that AR will transform the world.

  • We are learners. Learning is at the core of everything we do and we are passionate about educating people about AR.

  • We are nimble. We empower people by making AR creation simple, quick and affordable.

  • We are playful. We have a lot of fun trying the latest immersive technologies and we want to share that fun with everyone.

  • We are diverse. Diversity is not only core to our team, but also a core strength of our entire ecosystem: developers, partners, and platforms.

We are committed to building a diverse culture and are eager to receive applications from all backgrounds. All applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, or age.