Vice President Of Technology And Systems

Vice President of Technology & Systems

Location: Tewksbury, MA

Walden Local Meat is New England and New York’s leading brand of sustainable, locally-raised meat. We connect families with farmers by distributing our delicious products directly to thousands of member households, through wholesale channels, and in select local retail locations. Our mission is to support healthier animals, people, and communities. ‘Waldeneers’ believe in simplicity, doing the right thing for our members, and that the little things matter. We’re looking for a VP of Technology & Systems to join our mission-driven leadership team. Applicants must be able to regularly be on-site at our office space and warehouse facility, both located in Tewksbury, MA. If you’re inspired by innovation and our ambitious mission, we'd love to meet you!

We’re focused on increasing our impact and our leaders often wear multiple hats. Our pioneering business has unique requirements, which means we are constantly balancing between innovating to accomplish our mission and leveraging best-in-class existing systems (both internal and external). The Vice President of Technology and Systems will be passionate about our mission and partner closely with business teams to implement technology that will grow our impact. You will lead our internal technology team and our partnerships with external collaborators. This is a full-time role and requires regularly working onsite in our Tewksbury, MA corporate office and warehouse. This position reports directly to the CEO.

What You'll Do

• Manage projects starting from defining requirements all the way through implementation and post-live support
• Collaborate with teams including marketing, operations, supply, finance and member experience to plan projects to expand business capabilities and streamline current functions
• Responsible for cybersecurity include PCI compliance, networks, endpoints, and company training & awareness
• Be a thought leader and collaborator with the senior leadership team. Develop multi-year roadmaps and plans
• Serve as the direct manager for members of the Systems team (currently 3 employees) in addition to developing plans to build the team and hire strategically
• Partner with production and operations teams to ensure warehouse, fulfillment and logistics proprietary technologies and multiple systems are supported and improved
• Manage relationships with outside partners and be responsible for activities such as feature scoping, project management, and quality control
• Develop a deep understanding of Walden’s collection of internal and 3rd party platforms, and lead the technology team to maintain and improve all our connected systems
• Build powerful data analytics and business intelligence capabilities in partnership with subject matter experts across the enterprise
• Lead the software development team and lifecycle including design sessions, code reviews, feature testing, and debugging activities in project based sprints
• Lead overall planning, staffing, budgeting, and recommendations for implementing new systems
• Lead technology teams, partners, and project portfolios across e-commerce, back-end systems, data analytics, and infrastructure

What You'll Bring

• You have experience with eCommerce and SaaS Platform environments such as BigCommerce, Magento, or Shopify, and CRM platforms such as Klaviyo
• You’ve developed high performing teams and led hiring initiatives for developers and other IT staff, considering team needs and make-up, as well as candidate evaluation
• Experience collaborating closely with marketing and digital teams to improve the customer experience and new customer acquisition
• Experience with direct-to-consumer (DTC) and a recurring revenue business model is a strong plus - understanding that acquisition of new members/customers AND retention of current is key. Systems design for member engagement is a key success factor for this role
• Experience in food manufacturing, food categories, or a related industry such as agriculture or cannabis is a plus
• Passionate about our mission and motivated by a fast-startup tempo in creation, design, rapid customer engagement, team empowerment, and holding to milestone outcomes
• You’ve led strategic change across an organization
• Held a position as a Sr. Manager, Director, VP, or similar in technology and/or systems
• Not afraid to "roll up the sleeves" and go outside your comfort zone to learn – pushes teams to do the same
• You’ve worked in a manufacturing/physical-operations environment and understand the team demands of supporting 24/7 workweek operations
• Experience with evolution of technology teams and systems from startup to a medium/large size organization. Understands the journey to scale and the hands-on scrappiness required at a fast growing startup
• You’ve built technology roadmaps guided by user research, buy/build/partner decisioning and technology gap analysis
• Hands-on software development experience during your career such as: Python, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript or other languages
• Experience leading software development teams and processes. You’ve held a role where you were involved in hands-on development and technical decision-making for application development, managing a backlog/release plan, tracking team level metrics, and removing blockers
• You have great organizational skills. You can describe your process for how you manage your own time, as well as your team(s)
• GitHub & Jira
• Familiarity with tools in our stack is helpful but not required: Cloud hosting with Amazon Web Services (Aurora DB, Elastic Beanstalk, Cloudfront, etc), 3rd party platforms such as Stripe, Mandrill, Zendesk, Twilio, Squarespace, headless BigCommerce, VistaTrac and others
• Relational database such as MySQL/MariaDB or Postgres
• Experience selecting and implementing enterprise vendor-supported applications such as ERP, CRM, Data Analytics, and Warehouse Management Systems
• Metabase for enterprise reporting

Don’t check all the boxes? Don’t worry! We know that there is no such thing as a ‘perfect' candidate. Walden Local is committed to building a team that brings passion for our mission and a diverse set of experiences and opinions. Feel welcomed to bring your whole and authentic self and please apply if this is a role you feel passionately about! We read cover letters and encourage you to share your unique experience and interest in this role and our mission.

What We Offer

Walden Local is committed to providing its employees with a benefits package designed to give them the flexibility they need to ensure a healthy life/work balance. ‘Waldeneers’ receive great benefits and perks, including, but not limited to:

• The Fun Stuff: 25% off up to 2 Walden monthly meat shares, up to 5 lbs of free meat weekly, 25% discount at our Boston butcher shop, family-friendly annual company picnic and holiday party, monthly employee events
• One paid day of VTO / volunteer time off per year
• Health & Wellness: Medical & Dental, Unlimited PTO, 8 Paid Holidays, 8 Weeks Paid Parental Leave, 6 Year Sabbatical Program.
• Financial: Salary aligned to experience level, annual incentive plan (AIP), Equity participation, & 401k

When You Join Walden…

You’ll be Making Local Work - contributing to a mission-driven startup committed to reinvigorating local agricultural economies, in support of healthier communities, animals and soil. Walden Local is New England and New York’s leading brand of sustainable, locally-raised meat, connecting families with farmers by distributing directly to thousands of households across the Northeast. We believe in simplicity, doing ridiculous things for our members, and that the little things matter. We’re building a diverse team that shares these passions. If you’re inspired by ambitious missions and working hard to solve complicated problems, we'd love to meet you!

We're proud to be an equal opportunity employer and we celebrate our employees' differences, including race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, and Veteran status. Different makes us better