Head of Backend Technology

Grow our business through technology and innovation

Twipe is a mediatech scale-up based in Leuven, Belgium working with leading newspaper publishers in Europe and the US to grow their digital subscribers and sustain quality journalism. We offer cloud based digital edition publishing, analytics, and personalisation solutions. Our solutions accelerate the growth of newspapers like the Le Monde, The Telegraph and DuMont.

To inspire our industry, we gather and analyse industry knowledge and share insights with our growing Future of News publishers’ community.

We are seeking a highly skilled Head of Backend Technology with a proven track record in cloud and end-user technologies. Reporting to the CEO, you will establish company technology vision, strategies, and plans for growth. You will be a key mentor for our talented young developers, engineers and tech leads. You will ensure new technologies are adequately assessed and implemented in the various parts of our platform. You will be in charge of the Cloud Operations team.

Your responsibilities  

  • Set a vision for how technology will be used in the company
  • Define the high level architectural blueprint of our SaaS solutions
  • Create timelines for the development and deployment of all technological services.
  • Ensure technology practices (eg coding guidelines, CI/CD, architecture) adhere to industry best practice standards.
  • Act as a technical expert/mentor to team members.
  • Ensure that the technological resources meet the company’s short and long-term needs.
  • Stay on top of technology trends and developments and apply them to foster our growth.
  • Outline the goals for research and development.
  • Maintaining a customer-focused outlook and aiding in the delivering of IT projects to market.
  • Managing technology budgets and time frames.
  • Ensuring all technology practices adhere to regulatory standards.
  • In charge of the Cloud Operations team, ensure highest levels of availability and security, and allowing for smooth DevOps processes.

Your profile 

We’re looking for an entrepreneurial candidate with excellent communication skills and the ability to roll up their sleeves and join a fast moving, collaborative team.

  • Master of Science in Engineering, specialized in Computer Science or equivalent experience, during which you’ve developed extremely strong Computer Science fundamentals and analytical abilities.
  • Minimum of 10 years of overall enterprise level software development and 3 or more years of management or leadership role.
  • Experience with development of a 24/7 SaaS solution is a strong plus.
  • Experience with backend technology relative to industry; .Net, C#, SQL Server, AWS cloud, Python, Java or C++.
  • Extensive software engineering development and design experience with complex and highly scalable products using multiple technologies and languages.
  • Experience with software development methodologies, agile software development values and practices, especially Scrum or Lean Software Development preferred.
  • Ability to attract top talent; demonstrated success in motivating and cultivating your team.
  • Ability to multi-task in maturing business environments.
  • Decisive and effective at issue tracking and resolution.

Your skills 

  • You always raise the bar for yourself and your team 
  • You are highly organized and a good multi-tasker.
  • You have an in-depth technical understanding, which allows you to quickly make assessments and to have effective discussions with the business teams.
  • You don’t hesitate to take the lead on challenging projects.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills to influence others to take action.
  • You’re a good negotiator and are able to make trade-offs between various interests.
  • You are very detail-oriented.

What do we offer? 

  • We offer the opportunity to make a difference in the international expansion of a technology scale up solving a problem of global interest for the media sector.
  • We offer a very challenging job in a dynamic company at the fore front of innovation in emerging technologies.
  • We offer personal development opportunities and have a strong track record of growing people beyond their competences and comfort zone.
  • We are glad to welcome you in a young, international team with entrepreneurial spirit.
  • We invest in an attractive workplace, a cross-road of creativity, design and technology.

Interested in building the future news distribution platform and eager to be part of a growing business? Join our team! 

Send your CV to jobs@twipemobile.com and we will contact you to get started on our journey together!