Head of Engineering

Description

Wattpad’s vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories. A leading global webnovel platform, Wattpad has democratized storytelling for a new generation of diverse Gen Z writers and their fans. Wattpad is part of WEBTOON Entertainment’s IP & Creator Ecosystem, where approximately 155 million monthly active users discover incredible stories in multiple formats. Come build the future of entertainment and storytelling with our global team, and write your next chapter with us!

Wattpad is part of the WEBTOON Entertainment family of brands, home to some of the world's largest storytelling platforms. With approximately 155 million monthly active users, WEBTOON Entertainment’s IP & Creator Ecosystem of aligned brands and platforms include WEBTOON, Wattpad--the world’s leading webnovel platform--WEBTOON Productions, Studio N, Studio LICO, WEBTOON Unscrolled, LINE MANGA, and eBookJapan, among others. To read more about our family of Brands, check out our website here .

Wattpad follows a hybrid work model, with employees working from our vibrant downtown Toronto office 3x per week.

Our Engineering team builds and operates the systems that power Wattpad’s reader and writer experiences across mobile and web. The team works across client engineering, platform, data, infrastructure, safety, monetization, and the technical foundations that support discovery, personalization, community, and content intelligence.

We’re building a culture where engineers are deeply connected to the problems we’re solving and the impact their work has on our users and the business. We want teams that are proactive, collaborative, and comfortable making decisions, solving problems, and moving with urgency. Engineers are expected to work closely with Product, Design, Data, Content, and Trust & Safety, bringing technical perspective into the problem early rather than operating as a separate delivery function.

We value strong technical judgment, thoughtful tradeoffs, clear ownership, continuous learning, and a mindset of “we can figure this out.” The opportunity for this leader is to help us continue strengthening that culture and build an engineering organization that combines technical excellence with speed, accountability, and strong cross functional partnership.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the engineering leadership team across architecture, client engineering, platform, and data engineering; building on the strengths and momentum already in place.
• Continue strengthening engineering delivery, planning, estimation, and technical roadmapping as we evolve how our teams work and build together.
• Shape the technical direction of Wattpad alongside senior technical leaders, ensuring our architecture and systems can support both the experiences we’re building today and where the platform needs to go next.
• Strengthen our Data Engineering capabilities and foundations to support a future increasingly powered by personalization, content intelligence, experimentation, and AI.
• Help teams make strong, timely technical decisions and thoughtful tradeoffs between speed, scalability, complexity, and long term maintainability.
• Build an engineering culture where teams are proactive problem solvers, bring forward recommendations, and feel ownership for moving problems through to resolution.
• Develop strong engineering leaders who can operate with increasing autonomy, make good decisions, and grow high performing teams.
• Continue evolving our engineering operating practices so teams have the clarity, communication, and rigor they need to move quickly and respond effectively when issues arise.
• Deepen the partnership between Engineering, Product, Design, Data, Content, and Trust & Safety so teams shape problems and solutions together from the start.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, curiosity, accountability, urgency, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Required Qualifications:
• 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams and senior engineering leaders.
• Experience leading a multi team engineering organization across areas engineering, infrastructure, and data.
• Strong technical depth and architectural judgment, with the ability to credibly challenge senior engineers and technical leaders.
• Experience leading or partnering closely with Data Engineering and a strong understanding of modern data platforms, pipelines, architecture, and analytics infrastructure.
• Demonstrated experience improving engineering operating practices, including planning, estimation, technical roadmapping, delivery, ownership, and incident response.
• Strong people leadership and coaching skills, with experience developing engineering managers and senior technical leaders.
• Proven ability to make sound decisions in ambiguous environments, evaluate tradeoffs, and move teams from problem identification to resolution.
• Strong cross functional leadership skills and experience partnering closely with Product, Design, Data, and other business functions.
• Experience leading through organizational or technical change while maintaining team engagement and delivery.
• No specific degree, license, or professional certification is required. Equivalent practical experience is valued.
• Nice To Haves:
• Strong technical judgment, with the ability to challenge assumptions and help teams make better architectural and systems decisions.
• A track record of creating engineering rigor through stronger planning, decision making, accountability, and operational discipline without adding unnecessary process.
• A proactive problem solving mindset, with experience moving teams from identifying problems to developing options, recommendations, and solutions.
• Strong leadership leverage, with demonstrated success developing engineering managers and senior technical leaders and increasing autonomy across the organization.
• Experience building collaborative engineering cultures where Engineering operates as an integrated partner with Product, Design, Data, Content, Trust & Safety, and the broader business.

Benefits

• Career development; we believe in mentorship and investing in your learning, supporting you to achieve your goals
• Top industry health benefits, including vision and dental
• Your own health/wellness account to spend each year
• RRSP Contributions (Canada), 401K Contributions (USA)
• Generous vacation and Maternity/Parental leave top-up program
• Corporate discount for gym memberships for you and your family
• Work from almost anywhere in the world for part of the year
• Winter break shutdown and a whole lot more!
• Wattpad is conducting all interviews in a distributed manner using applicable third party software where needed and using visual interface tools such as Google Meet and Zoom.
• About Wattpad
• Who are we? Entrepreneurs and Do-ers. Our vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories, and our mission is to use the power of community and technology to unleash the full potential of stories to the world.
• What does that mean? We are visionaries, community builders, passionate problem solvers, storytellers, coffee snobs (tea drinkers, too!), curious by nature, and culturally diverse.
• What are we obsessed with? Our users. Solving complex problems and maximizing flow. Learning constantly. Building the next great storytelling product. Finding the greatest stories ever told. Dogs (and cats), coffee, and good snacks.
• How do we work? Autonomously, collaboratively, respectfully. Balancing with work, family, and play...and all while having a great time.
• Unlock the best of both worlds with a role that keeps you connected! Wattpad has a hybrid work model, where employees enjoy the flexibility to connect with colleagues and collaborate on exciting projects in person, as well as the time and space to for productive work from home. This is your opportunity to be a part of our thriving workplace culture.
• Wattpad encourages candidates to apply as long as they are authorized to work in Canada (excluding Quebec) as a precondition of employment. We are not able to sponsor applicants for work permits.
• Culture and Diversity
• Wattpad is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate. Period.
• Wattpad welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. We have taken a leadership position on creating a culture and an organization that truly values diversity. We are committed to fostering a global team that reflects the diversity of the Wattpad community. At Wattpad, we believe cultural fit doesn’t mean culturally identical, and diversity of thought helps us to challenge one another to think big and think differently. We consider employment applicants without regard to age, race, colour, national origin, citizenship, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, disability status or any other protected status.
• If you have any special needs or accessibility requirements, please let us know. We will do our utmost to accommodate, in accordance with applicable local legislation.
• Don’t meet all the requirements? Studies show women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs if they do not meet all the qualifications. Therefore, in an effort to build a more diverse workplace, we encourage you to apply anyways. You might actually be the right person or you may be a good fit for a number of other openings we currently have.
• Wattpad