Engineering Lead, backend

Varjo is a Finnish mixed and virtual reality technology company. We are known for mixed reality that looks and feels just as real as the real world. Founded in 2016, Varjo is doing business in more than 40 countries worldwide, with offices in Helsinki, Oslo, and Washington D.C. And the immersive computing revolution has only just begun. 

Our in-house R&D team designs and develops hardware, software, and services that are now a symbol of the highest quality across the industry. Varjo’s VR and XR solutions are already being used to train astronauts, design vehicles, and many more professional use cases across the world’s leading companies. Since recently, we’ve also been setting new standards for prosumers looking for true-to-life virtual simulations. Our vision for Varjo Teleport is to allow digital teleportation across space and time. We digitize the real world around us in real-time and present it to remote users in VR, seamlessly combining virtual and physical spaces. You can learn more about our vision and what we are doing right now at https://varjo.com/blog/varjo-teleport/   

Our multicultural team consists of talents from all around the world, and our daily working language is English. We believe in the power of diversity – where different experiences, backgrounds, and ideas drive innovation and results. 

Job description

We are looking for an Engineering Lead with the background in backend and AWS to guide and support the team of engineers in building customer-facing experience and push Varjo Teleport to productisation stage. In this role you will divide your responsibilities between leading the team of 3 engineers (Unity, Backend, iOS) and doing the hands-on work by designing and implementing the solution itself. For now, we are using Python, AWS and Docker and therefore, you need to be very comfortable going deep down with implementation of these technologies.  

For the product our primary focus is to polish the core value of the product that sits in visual quality and iterate quickly to validate our assumptions with real users as early as possible.  To do that you will collaborate closely with Product, Design and ML/3D Engineers’ team. Together you will contribute to product goals and turn them into product and implementation backlog. 

What you’ll be doing

• You will own delivery and operations of the backend service(s) powering Varjo Teleport. 
• Ensure our roadmap balances delivering value to our users with maintaining technical debt. 
• Guide and support team of engineers in building customer-facing experiences. 
• The tech stack you will be working on is Python, Docker, Aurora Postgres,  AWS services – ECS, RDS particularly. 
• Challenge our engineering processes and practices, make them more efficient. 
• Take accountability for what you build. Have pride in building unit and regression tests to prove that your code and solutions truly work. 
• Collaborate with a cross-functional team (Product, Design) to deliver an innovative product to end-users.

The role is open for these locations (Sweden/Finland/Germany/UK/Norway) and if you are not based there yet, we will be happy to support your relocation. 

Who we are looking for

• Preferably experience from product-based company where you had a change to ship working products to end-users. 
• Years of hands-on experience with operating services in AWS: ECS, RDS particularly. 
• Experience with Python or any other open source, backend programming language. 
• We expect you to have product discovery mindset and not asking for ready to implement requirements from PM/Design but rather exploring requirement and objectives together with them.  
• If you have not been in a team leading position yet but you feel you would be ready to take that step, we wish that you been exposed to situations in projects where you lead by example, took ownership of a bigger junk of work or empowered others. 
• You make responsible technology choices, taking on risk where appropriate and choosing predictability where appropriate. 
• Ability to explain complex topics to people without the same expertise.  
• Be open-minded, self-reflective and growth oriented. 

We offer

• The possibility to see into the future of computing by taking part in creating the new state of art in virtual and mixed reality products and experiences
• A startup culture with minimal bureaucracy and maximum opportunity for you to take charge of your work
• Work with the best, learn from the best
• The possibility to select the tools and methods you want to use to do your job effectively
• Competitive salary in the capital of the world's happiest country (or any of other Varjo locations)
• Premium benefits fitting your needs and location

Get in touch

Ready to join? Apply now.

Include your CV and a link to your LinkedIn profile. Send us details of work you are especially proud of and what you did in those projects – wow us.

If you know people who are already working for Varjo, feel free to drop their names in your message.

This role will be filled as soon as the suitable candidate is found.

Candidates with a suitable combination of education, training and experience are encouraged to apply. Even if your profile is not a perfect match but you want to learn and grow, we would love to hear from you.