Job Details

Overview

We're partnering with one of the world's leading construction equipment manufacturers to reinvent how the industrial world builds, operates, and makes decisions. This is a rare chance to work shoulder-to-shoulder with a global market leader, tackling high-impact problems with technology and taking bold ideas from 0 to 1. As an Engineering Leader on this venture, you'll have the mandate and autonomy to turn raw concepts into real businesses — scoping, building, and launching software that can transform an industry.

You'll serve as the technical architect and engineering leader for one of our venture labs. You will be responsible for the technical design and delivery of the products and businesses, from validating technical feasibility of early-stage concepts to identifying disruption opportunities, creating initial technical design & architecture, recruiting engineering talent, and building Proof-of-Concept products. You'll work closely with the product lead through sprints and MVP development, mentoring and managing engineering leads, and reporting to the Head of Studio (CTO). You'll collaborate with corporate partners and with Head of Engineering peers across labs to unlock your team's potential and build startup‑quality companies.

Responsibilities

• Lead venture engineering teams to address real-world business problems
• Build, grow and operate startups alongside venture leadership, product, business/growth, and corporate partners
• Heavily use AI tools to accelerate speed and quality of software delivery
• Contribute to building internal AI tools for acceleration and IP portfolio expansion
• Ensure technical feasibility of all venture products
• Identify areas where frontier technology can differentiate or create a moat
• Create rapid proofs of concept and scale them into functional MVPs
• Build with software best practices in testability, maintainability, security, and scalability
• Be a player/coach, mentoring engineering teams and occasionally architecting solutions or writing code
• Share learnings and best practices across ventures and labs to improve engineering at UP.Labs
• Operate in a diverse, fast-paced, collaborative, and transparent environment where ideas are valued

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in engineering leadership and building technical teams
• Experience and passion for building startup ventures
• Strong interest in applying AI/ML to real-world problems and improving engineering workflows
• Experience in ambiguous, fast-paced environments (startups/growth tech) with results focus
• Hands-on, end-to-end product build experience (web, mobile) across multiple languages/technologies
• Experience managing remote, distributed teams including contractors
• Ability to build scalable, high-quality distributed services
• Experience with agile/lean/CD approaches (scrum, CI, TDD, IaC, etc.)
• Experience building cloud-native architectures
• Strong collaboration with Product teams to find effective solutions
• Ability to design and maintain agile development processes, QA standards, and reliable delivery
• Ability to evaluate technical talent through interviews
• Strong communication skills to explain technical vision to multidisciplinary teams
• Open, curious, and humble mindset aligned with an open, inclusive, and collaborative environment

Additional competencies

• Experience working with Data Science and Machine Learning Engineers on frontier technology solutions

Technologies we use (illustrative)

• Frameworks & Libraries: Django, React, Node.js, Next.js, Nest.js
• Languages: Python, JavaScript/TypeScript
• Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, Terraform, AWS/GCP/Azure

Location & work model

Location: Santa Monica, CA. Hybrid work environment: in-office Monday–Thursday; remote on Fridays. Travel: 6+ weeks per year.