{"id":3543784,"url":"https://alion.io/job/optimal-dynamics-vp-of-engineering","title":"VP of Engineering","company":{"id":170910,"name":"Optimal Dynamics","domain":"optimaldynamics.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/optimal-dynamics","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"inferred_payroll_markers","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":240000,"max":280000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":280000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon Aurora","optional":true},{"name":"Amazon ECS","optional":true},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":true},{"name":"Anthropic","optional":true},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Bazel","optional":true},{"name":"Claude","optional":true},{"name":"Copilot","optional":true},{"name":"Dagster","optional":true},{"name":"dbt","optional":true},{"name":"DuckDB","optional":true},{"name":"DynamoDB","optional":true},{"name":"GitHub","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"OpenAI Codex","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":true},{"name":"Terraform","optional":true},{"name":"Trino","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-30T18:34:06Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-30","last_verified_at":"2026-11-01T17:51:10Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"About Our Company\nBuilt on over four decades of pioneering research at Princeton University, our platform represents the leading edge of innovation in freight and transportation planning. We help customers unlock double-digit revenue gains and drive smarter, data-driven operations at scale.\nToday, Optimal Dynamics is a Series C company of ~70 employees, backed by top-tier investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, The Westly Group, Activate Capital, and Koch. We're on a mission to redefine the way logistics decisions are made-and we’re just getting started.\nAbout Our Team\nWe are a team of bright, kind, and solution-oriented people focused on creating value for our customers. We can solve problems individually, but understand that the best solutions are found when the team brainstorms ideas together. We are excited about balancing the need to deploy new solutions quickly and designing solutions that are secured, reliable, maintainable, and scalable for the long run.\nAbout the Role\nOptimal Dynamics is searching for a VP of Engineering who is a builder at their core. As our senior engineering leader, the VP of Engineering reports directly to our COO, leads our engineering organization, oversees engineering team managers, and serves as Engineering’s voice to executive leadership. \nYou’ll set technical direction, turn business priorities into executable plans, and build strong, connected teams, all while staying hands-on in architecture and code. You’ll work closely and cross-functionally with Product, Design, AI, and Analytics leadership. \nIf you see yourself as both an architect and a connector who has successfully directed fast-moving, scaling technical teams, this could be the role for you.\nWhat You’ll Do\nLead and Steward\nOversee and enable Engineering Managers, understand their priorities, and build a cohesive, connected engineering organization\nRecruit, develop, and retain great engineers, building a team that can scale\nStrengthen a low-ego, high-ownership engineering culture that delivers rapid and exceptional product\nSet Technical Direction \nOwn engineering vision, architecture, and technology strategy with a focus on reliability, security, and scalability \nImplement best CI/CD and QA practices-setting and defining policy on how we build, test, and deploy to production\nIdentify blockers and execute plans that create efficiency and excellence with a willingness to not only delegate, but step in on critical needs \nMake pragmatic decisions that fit our stage, and know when to move fast and when to invest for the long term\nBe the Glue\nPartner with AI and Analytics leadership so our AI and optimization work turns into reliable, production-grade software\nFoster agreement and collaboration - clear ownership where your teams’ work overlaps and intermingles \nWork with Product leadership on vision, roadmap, prioritization, and tradeoffs\nRepresent engineering to the C-Suite: advocate for the team, provide progress reports, flag risks early, and set realistic timelines\nJoin and contribute to key customer, partner, and investor conversations, providing technical credibility \nEnable the Organization\nImplement lightweight processes, metrics, and operating rhythms that improve how fast and how predictably we deliver\nOwn engineering career pathing, headcount, vendors, and cloud spend\nEnsure security, data privacy, and compliance standards meet enterprise customer expectations. \nWho You Are\nExperienced: Our ideal candidate has 10+ years of engineering experience and 3+ years of managing managers. Your work history showcases significant time designing and building production systems.\n Leader: You’ve led a dynamic engineering organization in a scaling technical or startup environment. Ambiguity energizes you. (Bonus points if you’ve grown a technical organization in a research-born company). \nTechnical: \nYou’re a problem-solver and architect; you stay current with emerging tools and your experience showcases a history of technical decisions that have guided engineering organizations into the future.\nYou see what’s coming on the horizon and are the SME on all technical decisions, building a stack and platform that stays ahead of the technical curve. \nYou've built and scaled B2B SaaS, ideally with enterprise customers.\nSecurity Focused: You treat security as a business-level priority: continually hardening infrastructure, data, and access against external attacks and insider threats as we scale. You’ve directed ongoing SOC 2 compliance standards. \nCollaborator and Connector: You excel in communicating and advocating as the go-between for engineering, product, AI/analytics, and leadership; it's part of the job that fuels you, not a chore. You connect engineers, executives, and customers alike. You can both push back with conviction and admit when you’re wrong.\nTrust Builder: You’ve stepped into teams with existing managers and history before, and you know how to earn trust and build consensus. You care about the real-world impact of technical products and see the value in the optimization our product brings to the logistics and transportation landscape. \nBonus Points\nYou’re well-versed and up to date on our tech stack (see below)\nExperience with logistics, transportation systems, or similar complex operational domains\nOur Tech Stack and Development Practices\nAt Optimal Dynamics, our entire infrastructure runs on AWS, leveraging a wide range of services including DynamoDB, Aurora, SSM, and SQS to power our intelligent logistics platform.\nOur tech stack includes:\nBackend & AI: Python 3 and Java\nFrontend: JavaScript/TypeScript for our web-based SPA\nData Stack: Trino, Dagster, dbt, DuckDB, and Preset\nIaC: Terraform and Spacelift\nCloud: AWS (ECS/RDS/S3/etc)\nCI/CD: Bazel, Github, AWS CodePipeline/CodeBuild\nGenAI: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot\nWe follow modern development best practices with all code stored on GitHub. Every pull request undergoes thorough code reviews, is fully unit tested, and deployed through our CI/CD pipeline for continuous quality assurance.\nPay Range\n$240,000—$280,000 USD\nBenefits\nCompetitive compensation, including Series C level equity\nHealth / Dental / Vision 100% covered for employee and 50% for dependents\nLife Insurance, with optional supplemental insurance\nFlexible Spending Account (FSA)\nHealth Spending Account (HSA)\n401(k) with match\nUnlimited PTO (vacation, personal days, sick days, jury duty, military leave, bereavement)\n11 Holidays\nPaid Parental Leave for all employees\nShort-term and Long-term Disability Insurances, and AD&D Insurance\nFitness membership reimbursement\nCommuter benefits\nOptimal Dynamics is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive workplace with equal opportunity for all applicants and employees. Our goal is to recruit the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool regardless of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex (including pregnancy), age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.\nOptimal Dynamics is committed to working with and providing access and reasonable accommodation to applicants. If you require an accommodation, please reach out to  once you've begun the interview process. 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