Disguise sits at the heart of the most inspiring live and virtual experiences in the world, leading the market in building a software and hardware solution that designs, sequences and controls the most spectacular productions across film and TV, broadcast, live and corporate events.
Job Title: VP of Engineering
Location: London
Department: Engineering, Product & Tech Excellence
Reports into: Chief Product & Technology Officer
WHY YOU’RE HERE
Are you a visionary engineering leader who thrives at the intersection of software and hardware? Do you have the technical acumen to push boundaries, a passion for media & entertainment, and the ability to drive change while keeping the wheels turning on a continuously evolving product?
At Disguise, we’re seeking a VP of Engineering to lead our engineering team, innovate for the future, and steer our technology to new heights. This is your chance to shape the development of cutting-edge tools used by creative visionaries worldwide, delivering immersive experiences across film, broadcast, live events, and beyond. You’ll work closely with Product and Programmes, reporting directly to the Chief Product & Technology Officer, to ensure our products remain at the forefront of the industry.
Strong leadership capability to manage and grow the existing functional leadership is critical as well as growing our Cloud and Infrastructure function in order to support rapid team growth. You will have a major say in how the software is developed, structured and implemented and will be involved in all stages of development from design, through implementation to delivery and support. You will also be required to drive the improvement, support and maintenance of existing areas of the product. Development is conducted in a small, highly focused team, light on process and requiring a hands on approach.
WHAT YOU ARE HERE TO DO
Engineering Leadership
- Lead, inspire, and grow a talented team of engineers spanning software and hardware disciplines, with a focus on software.
- Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and accountability, ensuring the team thrives in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
- Bridge diverse teams, strategically navigating co-existing processes and workflows whilst finding opportunities to shape the environment for high performance
- Balance short-term goals with long-term vision, ensuring engineering excellence while adapting to the demands of a continuous product lifecycle.
- Draw on a comprehensive toolkit of methodologies, selecting and applying the most effective approaches to best serve complex outputs, while ensuring cohesive delivery and team alignment against evolving timeframes and strategic objectives.
- Adapt the structure and scale of the tech team as the company's needs change.
Strategic Vision & Execution
- Partner with Product and Programmes to define and deliver the engineering roadmap.
- Oversee the development of a “never-finished” product, maintaining agility while enhancing functionality and reliability.
- Identify and implement changes in processes, technologies, and systems to streamline operations and improve productivity.
- Drive the adoption of best practices in software development, architecture, and quality assurance.
- Keen awareness of technological market trends and shifts, seamlessly balancing immediate needs with an anticipatory forward-looking vision.
- Naturally expand and contract between high level vision and BAU weeds, to identify and eliminate issues before they evolve into blockers.
Technical Oversight
- Ensure the team is making sound technical decisions and has the resources needed to succeed.
- Act as a translator between engineering and business, simplifying complex technical ideas for non-technical stakeholders and ensuring alignment.
- Leverage your technical expertise to evaluate timelines, challenge assumptions, and keep the team honest.
- Guide the integration of software and hardware systems, ensuring a seamless user experience.
- Execute on continuous improvement of the existing products and architecture.
- Leverage technological advances, such as AI, to accelerate and improve development pace and quality.
Media & Entertainment Industry Expert
- Understand the unique demands of the media & entertainment industry, providing solutions tailored to this fast-moving, creative sector.
- Stay ahead of industry trends and evolving customer needs, ensuring our products remain relevant and competitive.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Experience & Skills
- Engineering Leadership: Proven track record of leading engineering teams in a software-focused environment, with some exposure to hardware and preferably experience at a start-up, during the rapid team and business scaling phase.
- Continuous Product Development: Demonstrable experience maintaining and evolving complex, ongoing products, as opposed to more cyclical products.
- Change Management: Demonstrated success implementing process, technology, or system changes in a dynamic environment.
- Technical Acumen: Clear demonstrable background in engineering, with the ability to assess technical plans, identify issues, and make informed decisions.
- Media & Entertainment Knowledge: Proven deep understanding of this fast-moving creative sector’s unique challenges and opportunities.
- Executive Relationship Management: Proven experience engaging with executives and collaborating with business leaders to leverage the value of data to drive and influence the business.
- Passion: Demonstrates passion for product excellence and experience working in organisations with strong collaboration between Engineering, Product, and Business functions.
- Achieving Results: A proven progression of successful delivery as an individual, team leader and development manager.
- Strategic Thinking: Ability to link vision and strategy with overall business objectives and communicate rationale in a compelling, concise manner.
Nice to Have:
We are particularly interested in any of the following experience:
- Experience with cloud technologies and architectures.
- Familiarity with Agile methodologies and scaling frameworks.
- Experience with latest advances in AI.
Behaviors & Attributes
- Visionary: You see the big picture and can guide the team to achieve it, balancing innovation with practicality.
- Collaborative: You thrive in cross-functional environments, working closely with product, design, and program teams.
- Adaptable: You excel at “changing the wheels while going around the track,” thriving in dynamic, high-stakes environments.
- Decisive: You’re not afraid to make tough calls and hold the team accountable to deliver on time and on budget.
You operate with empathy and strive to cultivate a work environment that is supportive, challenging and inclusive. You are passionate about helping engineers develop new skills and advance in their careers and you are a lifelong learner, passionate about learning new skills and taking on new challenges.
Check out our values, benefits and EVP at disguise.one.
Ready to change the game with us? Apply now and help shape the future of media & entertainment technology!
About Disguise
Disguise is the industry-leading platform sitting at the heart of a new era of visual experiences. One powerful integrated system of software, hardware and services to help create the next dimension of real-time spectacle. We partner with the biggest entertainment brands and companies in the world to deliver the A-list of live music events, live TV broadcasts, immersive experiences, installations, theatre, film and TV production, corporate communications and brand product launches.
Disguise’s Emmy award-winning ecosystem of software and hardware is revolutionising every sector of the entertainment industry. With visual experience software, seamless end-to-end workflows, proven premium hardware and a Cloud suite of applications for global collaboration, we empower the biggest real-time, 3D productions around.
Disguise services offer a 24/7 global support system to meet any customer need ranging from essential technical service and online learning all the way to end-to-end creative and technical services from our creative and build team, Meptik. Working with Disney, Snapchat, Netflix, ESPN, U2 at the Sphere, the Burj Khalifa, U2 and Beyonce, Disguise is the number one partner delivering the next dimension of entertainment.
To discover the next dimension of entertainment at Disguise, check out our showreel.
Don’t Disguise your differences.
Innovation comes from everyone. We strive to create a workplace that reflects our diverse audience. We celebrate our people for their full authentic selves, and embrace uniqueness. Inclusion and Equity matter at Disguise. We create together and we create everywhere.
Our values
- Honest. We are real with ourselves and our clients and share our ideas with openness and transparency.
- Evolutionary. We innovate using our user’s ever-changing needs so our technology remains ahead-of-the-game.
- Fearless. We take the best path, not the easiest, and innovate where it’s right, not where it’s simplest.
- Resilience. We don’t give up until we find the right solution, even if it means going outside our remit.
- Belong. We create an environment where everyone feels like they belong and is empowered to do their best work.
Our benefits
- We have a suite of globally relevant competitive benefits packages as we want to make sure we retain the best talent out there. Our benefits for every perm hire, globally include:
- Unlimited Paid Time Off - with minimum time you must take set at 20% above statutory
- Hybrid working between home and our offices (dependent on role and location)
- Mental health and wellbeing support - subscription to the Calm app, weekly desk-yoga, mental health first-aid buddies, employee assistance programmes
- Gig allowance - £400 (or local equivalent) to spend on tickets every year to immerse yourself in our industries
- Belonging policies - including (but not limited to) support for Parental, Fertility, Miscarriage, Menopause and Transitioning
- Training, coaching & mentoring
Top Skills
What We Do
Disguise is the industry-leading platform at the heart of the new era of visual experiences. One powerful integrated system of software, hardware and services to help create the next dimension of real-time spectacle and the most talked about shows on Earth.
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