Gradle Project Lead

Gradle is the build system of choice for millions of developers around the globe and the official build tool for Android applications. Developing Gradle is a dynamic and demanding engineering challenge, with the reward of significant industry impact and collaboration with some of the world's best software teams.

Our software is used by some of the world's leading software organizations, such as Netflix, Amazon, LinkedIn, Block, and many others. We regularly collaborate with these and other users to continuously improve our products.

Who You Are

We’re seeking a Project Lead for Gradle Build Tool to help take it  to the next level and fully realize our vision, including developer-first software definition  and broader polyglot support. Our ideal candidate is deeply passionate about making other software engineers more productive and has experience in a similar role working on developer tools. You’re someone who enjoys getting hands-on, you have deep technical interest, and you’re a strategic thinker with a product mindset.  

Key Responsibilities 

The primary responsibility of this position is to help Gradle Build Tool advance its mission and achieve greater adoption and user satisfaction. 

This first and foremost includes:

• Guiding the technical and architectural direction of the project as part of Gradle Build Tool leadership.
• Being instrumental in defining, driving, and communicating the Gradle Build Tool product vision.
• Facilitating and fostering collaboration and effectiveness between sub-teams in service of the overall product vision. 
• Representing the project internally with key stakeholders and externally with strategic partners. 
• Fostering relationships with key influencers in the user community.
• Collaborating in critical outreach efforts to clearly and effectively advocate for Gradle Build Tool.

You’ll also take on the following areas of responsibility: 

Gradle Build Tool leadership

• Be instrumental in Gradle Build Tool leadership, currently consisting of the VP of Engineering and platform/team leads. 
• Help build consensus and alignment within the Gradle Build Tool leadership team through productive collaboration, leveraging existing deep expertise, and integrating different perspectives.

Company leadership and broader business impact

• Partner with key company stakeholders at a strategic level on Gradle Build Tool-related topics, especially with Develocity’s Engineering, Product, Marketing, and Developer Advocacy teams.
• Collaborate with the Develocity project to identify and deliver value-increasing strategic initiatives in the service of both projects.
• Influence the Gradle Build Tool roadmap in a way that serves both the user community and the goals of the business. 

External representation

• Represent the Gradle Build Tool team at a strategic level with key external partners such as Google, JetBrains, Spring, GitHub, and Microsoft.
• Help develop and maintain productive relationships in collaboration with the VP of Engineering and the rest of the team.

Advocacy

• Shape a more compelling narrative around our vision and roadmap, including mentoring the broader team on storytelling and directly contributing to strategic content.

Hands-on coding 

• The role's primary focus is not to create software individually, but a degree of hands-on coding work is expected. In particular, working with the codebase will require reviewing critical engineering work and exploring potential technical directions.

Minimum Qualifications

• 15+ years of software development experience, including significant leadership roles
• Proven ability to drive large-scale technical initiatives across multiple teams
• Experience as a project lead of a major developer tooling product
• Extensive experience with Java and the JVM
• Significant experience with build automation
• Experience with Gradle Build Tool
• Excellent understanding of modern software development techniques and best practices
• Experience dealing with scalability concerns, such as large volumes of data, high availability, low latency, and so on
• Strong communication skills in written and verbal English

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience as a project lead of a major open-source project
• Experience with multiple build systems besides Gradle, such as Ant, Maven, and/or Bazel.
• Experience with non-JVM programming languages and platforms

Benefits & Perks

• Learning & development: We offer a $1,000 annual learning and development stipend and a monthly meeting-free day dedicated to learning.
• Home office stipend: We offer a $1,500 home office stipend to make sure you’re comfortably equipped to work remotely.
• Volunteer day: We offer up to 8 hours of paid time each year for team members to give back to their local communities.
• Gradle World Meeting: We gather once a year for a week of in-person meetings and team-building events (at a very cool global “destination” venue).
• International benefits: We provide benefits that are tailored to your country of work.
• Competitive salary / Stock options: We offer competitive salaries and company stock option plans to all team members.

Location

• Anywhere in the world. We provide working conditions that allow for seamless collaboration with your colleagues through email, chat, and video conferencing.
• While our team works remotely and is spread across the globe, we deeply value daily interactions and constant collaboration.

How to Apply

• Submit your cover letter, answers to our application questions, and resume via the form below. The recruitment team will be in touch after you’ve applied.

Who We Are

We’re are a team of committed and skilled software engineers, product designers, sales professionals, and marketing experts. We’re passionate about developer productivity and we take pride in delivering products that some of the world's leading software organizations rely on daily.

Our team is globally distributed but deeply connected. We value our interpersonal relationships as much as we value our achievements. We’re a diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other and improve together, and we welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives.

Visit our careers page to learn more about the company and see other open positions. Visit Glassdoor to read what current and former Gradle employees have to say about the company.

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