Director of Software Architecture & Infrastructure

Summary
As the Director of Software Architecture and Infrastructure at IOG, you lead the guild of architects. This guild regroups all Architecture Directors for IOG projects and programs, who report to you. IOG is a fully distributed organization, to enable collaboration between teams, our focus areas for growth are the US, UK, Ireland and Poland. IOHK is a research and development, innovation driven company. Your mission is to provide a long term architectural vision at IOG that ensures collaboration, knowledge-sharing, interoperability and reusability of specifications and implementations across IOG’s projects (Cardano, Atala and others). You also have the responsibility for defining which support infrastructure (Cloud, On-Premise and others) these projects will need to support, to implement and to recommend. In order to assist you in this mission, you will have the support of the Head of Interoperability and infrastructure experts. You will lead a team of accomplished architects and engineers and be able to manage the uncertainties and ambiguities associated with working in a remote-first, distributed, decentralized environment. You will report to the CTO and work closely with the Chief Scientist, Chief Product Officer and the Research division in order to define the architectural vision and strategy for the company. You will be responsible for hiring the Architecture Directors when the company funds new projects and initiatives.
Duties
The duties of the role include, but are not limited to:
Lead the chapter of Architects and manage Directors of architecture
Hire the Director of architecture when IOG bootstraps new initiatives
Recruit and build an outstanding team of infrastructure Architects
Recruit and build an outstanding team specifically dedicated to blockchain interoperability
Define a vision and instill a culture of fostering ingenuity, creativity, inventiveness, originality, problem solving and simplicity in the team
Define processes for the team to:
Ensure knowledge sharing between projects and teams
Ensure that architectural work can be reused across projects as much as possible
Define and implement best practices for architecture specifications
Define recommendations for support infrastructure for our projects
Coordinate with all other departments, in particular Product, IT and Research, and address their requirements
Integrate technical trends reports and prototypes developed internally
Align with the department of Formal Methods to ensure that best practices are followed for implementing formally verified architecture when beneficial
Coordinate with the Applied Cryptography department to ensure that architecture are cryptographically secure and reuse state of the art technologies
Work closely with the Director of Engineering to make sure that architecture is implemented following software development best practices, coding and quality guidelines
Work closely with the Research Division to forecast the technologies to be integrated in future architecture
Work closely with the Product Division in order to manage a backlog of features to be supported by the architecture
Work closely with the IT department to define IOG requirements for operating its support infrastructure
Drive performance management conversations, and develop shared, organization level goals, across IOG, driving results in common goals to keep team performance on-track and aligned with our high-quality standards
Leadership
As Leaders, it is our responsibility to motivate, develop and progress our team members. As a Leader, there is a need to communicate openly with all members of your team, address any issues head on and confront difficult conversations when required. Empowering your team to provide the best results by organizing clear processes, and coordinating team efforts, should be your top priority. Please read our Leadership at IO Global document for more information on your duties and responsibilities as a leader at IOG
Requirements
Key Competencies
Impeccable leadership
Exceptional communicator
Open minded and horizontal team management
Ability to define, negotiate and execute on a roadmap
Ability to design highly effective processes and animate a team of experts
Ability to read, understand and contribute to academic/research publications
Ability to design and comprehend state of the art blockchain architecture
Ability to comprehend and integrate bleeding edge cryptographic primitives and formal methods
Vast knowledge and expertise in distributed systems engineering and blockchain systems architecture
Education / Experience
PhD or Master in Computer Science
15+ years of experience in computing
5+ years in the crypto/blockchain industry
5+ years as a team leader or manager
Professional English
Benefits
Flexible schedule
Remote work
Laptop reimbursement
New starter package to buy hardware essentials (headphones, monitor, etc)
Learning & Development opportunities
Competitive PTO
Medical Benefits
At IOG, we value diversity and always treat all employees and job applicants based on merit, qualifications, competence, and talent. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
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