Ben Slivka led the Internet Explorer team when I was at Microsoft, and he helped make it one of the most intense and exciting projects I’ve worked on. 

These days he’s heavily involved in education, both through the Wissner-Slivka Foundation and by co-founding a new startup called Schoolsoft.   They are currently hiring a VP of engineering; this is a unique opportunity to do important and rewarding work and to define the engineering culture of a new startup. 

Below are a few snippets from the Schoolsoft VP of Engineering job description:

The successful candidate will establish, elaborate, and evolve our Culture of Engineering as he builds and leads his team in the design, development, and deployment of our web service.

The successful candidate will work effectively to leverage the passion, experience, and vision of the company while balancing the day-to-day and strategic business priorities.

 Until the engineering team grows larger, a successful candidate will also design systems, write specifications and code, perform code reviews, debug and fix nasty bugs, and perform all of the other skills of a world-class software design engineer.

The successful candidate will describe his job thusly: “My role is to set the high level goals, get the right people in the right jobs — where they can leverage their strengths and work on their weaknesses — while I coach.  I try to push down authority with responsibility as deeply into the organization as possible.  I also represent the customer to make sure we meet our goals.”

Read More if you’re interested in this position.