Description
Please only apply if you have rights to live and work in the UK.
Vitol is the worlds biggest independent energy trading company with 40 offices worldwide. For the last half century, we have served the worlds energy markets efficiently and responsibly. We trade over seven million barrels of crude oil a day, whilst supporting initiatives and investments to transition to alternate energy sources. We decided to leverage our credibility, expertise and infrastructure in the world of fuel retailing to reimagine used car marketplaces, and created VavaCars.
VavaCars currently operates in Turkey and Pakistan with more emerging markets to follow. The company employs c130 heads, with c50 in engineering. We use Vitols existing assets like petrol stations to provide trusted, local and convenient access points for our service. We aim to create an oasis of calm at these locations and through all touch-points including the customer facing mobile-first website where the journey begins for consumers and dealers. We have redesigned the process for selling a car, removing the need for existing consumer pain points: classifieds sites, phone calls, trust issues in dealing with strangers, insurance for test drives, valuation, negotiation and worries in securing payment. Weve built a whole new consumer proposition anchored in Transparency, Simplicity, Convenience and Trust.
We have significant traction in applying a model similar to Auto1 and Carvana but adapted for markets not used to this level of convenience and service; over $110M of GMV in 2020 following our launch in April 2019 delivering the potential for high reward through our ESOP program.
The Role
To deliver this transformative consumer experience weve had to build bespoke technology platforms that are delightfully simple to the consumer, but behind the scenes are robust and sophisticated systems, enabling for example, cars to be quickly and accurately valued using our proprietary AI/ML systems, and traded through our high volume real-time dealer auctions, with each auction experiencing hundreds of simultaneous dealer interactions per minute.
We are seeking a commercially astute, entrepreneurial and visionary technology leader to join us in London or Istanbul to own, optimise and evolve our tech and product platforms. We are looking for a builder with a demonstrable track record of building teams, processes and products that work intuitively, reliably and at scale. The role reports to the Co-founder & CEO, VavaCars.
Youve had experience of fast moving, high growth environments in ambitious scaling companies. You know how to balance long term strategic needs with short term service level imperatives, and how to show steady and near-continuous progress towards goals.
You have the communication skills to impress our leadership with your technology vision, whilst demonstrating your clear understanding of the architectural challenges to earn the trust of your team. Whilst you know how to get the best from your team through delegation and empowerment, you understand that you must always own responsibility for the technology function and output.
The Responsibilities
- Define and evolve the overall technology strategy and product vision aligned with the companys ambitious goals, working closely with the CPO. Youll use the best of your creative skills and entrepreneurial instincts to help us imagine how our platforms will evolve to the next level;
- Together with the CPO and with the input of our cross-functional business owners you will build a product roadmap that delivers across five distinct journeys (consumer buying, consumer selling, dealer, inspector, internal back-office admin). Together you will ensure a healthy and constructive creative tension for agile and pragmatic delivery towards our goals;
- To hire, develop and retain a talented and productive team of engineers across the mission critical domains including software development, solutions architecture, data science, QA, delivery whilst ensuring resilience, compliance and scalability;
- To manage our fast growing off-shore team of engineers based in Ukraine, ensuring productive high-quality output from this efficient resource pool to complement your in- house team;
- Establish high trust relationships with the Country teams and show that you are progressing towards and beyond the global KPIs driving our company;
- Proactively identify new business development opportunities; build relationships with product and technology partners to create unions that will help us move faster in service of the overall vision and mission; be open to partnering instead of building;
- Champion a culture of test-learn-iterate in everything that technology does;
- We have a facts first culture and you will be expected to champion this as part of theleadership team; we really value your opinions and insights but we always like to startwith the facts and be able to filter out opinions masquerading as facts;
- Whilst balancing long term vision and short term delivery, you will still retain a rigoroushandle on the technology budget, both from a cost and sequencing perspective;
- One of the critical success factors for this role is for you to be able to drown out thenoise, be able to say no, be able to manage priorities and be able to ensure a laser like focus that allows you to keep your promises; leadership is not a popularity contest and the CTO must respecfully demonstrate this. You are a calm and confident leader, who knows how to dig deep on adaptability and resilience when called for.
Benefits
- Unique entrepreneurial and leadership opportunity to sketch your career masterpiece
- Play a key role in making a dent on the auto universe
- Work as part of a global, well-funded and highly ambitious organisation
- Highly competitive compensation; you will co-own what you build
The Package
VavaCars is a start-up that sits within the Vitol Investment team; the team is driven, energetic, well-financed with the ambition to create a highly scalable business with enormous shareholder value. The package will reflect this, with a competitive base salary, bonus and stock options in the new venture.
Location: London (or Istanbul) with the need for travel to Istanbul x1 quarterly, Ukraine x1 quarterly & Karachi x1 annually
Reporting to: Co-founder & CEO
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