Gradle Project Lead

Gradle is the build tool of choice for millions of developers around the globe and is 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 make our products continuously better.

Profile

We are looking for a Project Lead for Gradle Build Tool to help drive the evolution of the product to the next level and fully realize our vision, including developer-first software definition (see https://blog.gradle.org/declarative-gradle) and, in the future, broader polyglot support. 

We are looking for someone deeply passionate about making other software engineers more productive who preferably has experience in a similar role in a major developer tooling product. The role is hands-on and requires a combination of technical depth, strategic thinking, and a product mindset.  

Key responsibilities 

• The overarching primary responsibility is to help Gradle Build Tool advance its mission and achieve greater adoption and user satisfaction. 
• This involves:
• Guiding the technical and architectural direction of the project as a 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 with critical outreach efforts to clearly and effectively advocate for Gradle Build Tool.

Gradle Build Tool leadership

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

Part of company leadership and broader impact on the business 

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

Representing the team externally

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

Advocacy

• Shaping a more compelling narrative about our vision and deliverables, 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. Particularly, working with the codebase will be required to review critical engineering work and explore potential technical directions.

Minimum qualifications

Benefits & Perks

• A focus on learning and development – Gradle offers an annual learning and development stipend and a monthly company-wide Learning Day, where we encourage all team members to focus on their professional development for the day
• A hardware package that includes a laptop, monitor, other peripheral hardware, and a home office stipend to make sure you are fully set up to work remotely
• Generous paid time off
• Paid public holidays
• Volunteer Day – We offer up to 8 hours of paid work time each year for team members to give back to their local communities

Location

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

How to apply

The following is required with your application:

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

About us

Gradle Inc. is the award-winning developer productivity company behind Gradle Build Tool—one of the most used build systems in the world—and Develocity, the leading developer toolchain observability platform. Develocity provides comprehensive observability, build and test acceleration technologies, and rapid troubleshooting features for Apache Maven, Android, Bazel, sbt, npm, Python, and Gradle Build Tool. Top companies like Netflix, LinkedIn, ASML, Airbnb, Microsoft, Nasdaq, and SAP use Develocity to deliver critical software faster at scale.

Our team is globally distributed but deeply connected. We value our interpersonal relationships as much as we value our achievements. We are a diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other and together. 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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