Head of Software

Role: Head of Software

Location: San Diego, CA (in-office)

Salary: $220,000- $275,000 / yr + stock options, 401k matching, and other benefits

Role Overview:

Seasats is growing rapidly and is searching for a Head of Software to lead and manage the software engineering efforts across the organization. This position will work alongside our Principal Software Architect who has led the software development team over the last few years. At this stage in the team’s growth, we’re looking for a leader who can effectively direct a 15+ person team and be accountable for high performance output across a wide set of sub teams. 

Through the deployment of autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) around the world, Seasats has become a leader in the maritime autonomy space. A large part of the company’s success has been driven by focused development of automation and autonomy features to create leverage for ASV operators. To that end, our software team has expertise and capacity across a wide range of domains, including: front-end UIs, backend architecture and networking, vehicle autonomy, vehicle firmware, perception, machine learning. The Head of Software will provide direction across these disciplines, ensuring software efforts are coordinated, well-resourced, and aligned with company goals. 

Role Details:

As the Head of Software, you will coordinate with the Seasats leadership team and department leads to ensure alignment on software strategy, roadmap, and timelines.

On a day-by-day basis, you will:

• Partner with leadership to define software strategy, set priorities, and translate company goals into actionable engineering plans 
• Review software team work load and progress reports to ensure efforts are aligned with product roadmap
• Strategize new efforts and allocate resources to execute development campaigns
• Meet with developers to understand and resolve road blocks
• Foster team morale by providing clarity, recognition, and constructive feedback to team members
• Shape and scale the team through strategic hiring decisions

About You:

• 10+ years of experience in software development
• 3+ years of experience managing software teams
• A keen sense for timelines, project management, and how to laser in on the most important risk items 
• Excellent communication skills
• Practiced team leader, knowing how to engage and enable individual team members
• Experience building and maintaining software for robotics, vehicles, or other hardware-integrated systems
• Strong technical judgment and enough hands-on depth to guide architecture, tradeoffs, and execution
• Knowledgeable in tackling aggressive and ambitious projects
• Pragmatic, principled, and willing to make hard calls 
• Versed in the latest AI development tools and how to leverage them in a professional environment
• Able to obtain a security clearance

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience building or leading development of operator-facing user interfaces for complex systems, especially where real-time data and situational awareness are critical
• A background in maritime systems 
• Experience with defense applications

About Seasats:

At Seasats, we're passionate about delivering maritime robotics solutions to redefine the maritime industry. Our primary products are autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), designed to carry sensors at sea for months at a time. Our ASVs provide persistent monitoring and data acquisition to defense, scientific, and commercial customers, and have autonomously crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. After thousands of years in which the only way to gather information from the ocean was to put people on a boat, these uncrewed vessels are transforming how humanity monitors and interacts with the ocean. Here, you’ll find the space and opportunity to do your life’s best work.

Along with your salary, you’ll receive perks including:

• Competitive insurance (including a 99% employer-covered Gold HMO plan or other options)
• 401k matching up to 4% of salary
• Four free lunches per week
• An employee activity fund
• A pet-friendly office
• Unlimited/Flex PTO

Hiring Notes:

When applying, you’ll be asked to provide a resume and answer a few screening questions. 

Please note that we are currently unable to sponsor employment visas, so candidates must be independently authorized to work in the United States.

We appreciate diverse perspectives and life experiences, and we’re committed to building a team that reflects a wide range of backgrounds. Seasats provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination of any type based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under federal, state, or local law.

We look forward to reviewing your application!