The successful Principal Engineer for Blockchain Technologies will demonstrate expertise, passion, and ability for helping others learn and grow in this skill area. They will provide strategic thinking and help set vision for how Blockchain technology capabilities will develop over time, and how it will benefit our organization now and in the future. They will evangelize this skill area, encouraging others to learn, and providing opportunities for them to do so. They will research, identify, evaluate, and demonstrate new and evolving technologies, techniques and methodologies directly and indirectly related to Blockchains, and will coach, mentor, and referee practical conflict relating to Blockchain architectures, designs, and implementations across project teams and the organization.
This position will initially report to the Application Security Practice Director within Agile Software Delivery, subject to future reorganizations and restructuring of our leadership team.
Although considered a thought leader within our organization, this position will not have any direct reports.
Job Responsibilities/Essential Functions/Competencies
- Engage in billable project work for Blockchain and related technologies.
- Seek out, collaborate and coordinate with current and future blockchain-related initiatives, programs, and efforts within the larger WWT community.
- Provide Subject Matter Expertise to support Account Managers, Sales Engineers, Delivery Teams, Consultants, and clients, in pre- and post-sales contexts where Blockchain technologies are relevant.
- Continually stay at the forefront of software development and deployment techniques for blockchain technologies and serve as a subject matter expert for current and emerging standards regarding blockchain applications, protocols, and associated technologies.
- Provide recommendations for and support the development of key management plans for blockchain related cryptographic systems. This will include participating in the implementation of these and associated systems.
- Mentor both current and prospective clients and delivery teams for use cases where blockchain is relevant.
- Assist in recruiting and interviewing for engineers and technologists with the Blockchain skill area, including selecting interviewers, assessing interviewing standards for the skill area, and specifying qualification approaches. Will determine criteria for individuals to achieve levels of expertise within skill area as well as assesses competency: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced.
- Develop and coordinate learning and out-reach opportunities for those interested in Blockchain technologies including, but not limited to independent study resources, internal and external trainings, coaching and mentoring, and meet-up groups
- Demonstrate humility and a desire to foster learning and continuous improvement through the direct, frequent, and effective giving and receiving of feedback related to the skill area, job performance, and our core values.
Initial Deliverables
Within 90 days of being selected for, and starting this position, the Principal Engineer will accomplish (at a minimum), the following goals:
- Create sales support collateral in the form of a white paper and "one-pager" talk sheets to enable our Account Managers to understand when and how to add Blockchain capabilities to their pitches.
- Provide our Sales Engineers a training session to educate them on when and how to include Blockchain technologies in their Statements of Work.
- Establish initial relationships with other interested people throughout World Wide Technology to further collaboration in this technology space.
- Assess and summarize the current level of capability in Blockchain technologies at WWT Application Services.
- Build and deploy a working demo (or set of demos) to the WWT Digital Platform (wwt.com) illustrating how Blockchain can be used to solve challenges in at least two business domains (e.g. banking, and supply chain).
When This Role Is Done Well
- Employees across the company will have an identified authority to help them grow their skills related to Blockchain and associated technologies.
- Employees will have a path to gain knowledge in this skill area should it interest them.
- The Principal Engineer is acknowledged as a greater company-wide expert (and potentially outside) in their skill area.
- WWT's experience and knowledge in this area will result in more billable work around Blockchain, which will in turn result in the need to hire and train for this skill set.
Key Metrics
The Blockchain Technologies Principal Engineer will work with practice leadership to identify and track key metrics and performance indicators related to organizational health, capacity, and readiness of this and related technical skill areas. Some may include:
- Interview feedback and rate at which we hire for skill
- Annual survey of skill leader impact
- Conference/event speaker appearances
- Blog posts in various platforms (wwt.com / social media / etc.)
- Projects & outcomes using skills in their area
- Overall practice proficiency and training opportunities given
Working conditions
- Open office environment.
- Up to 50% travel may be required.
- Typical work schedule will be Monday through Friday, with occasional exceptions.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related experience. Master's degree preferred.
- Knowledge of and experience with cryptography and cryptographic systems, key management, blockchain, it's uses, and related protocols.
- Minimum three years in Software Development.
- Ability to work with minimal day-to-day direction, and to execute plans and initiatives with a large degree of self-reliance and motivation.
- Ability to work with cross-functional, distributed teams.
- Hands-on experience securing enterprise class distributed systems.
- Experience implementing and maintaining blockchain or cryptographic technologies at enterprise scale.
- Experience consulting to large enterprises, preferably in the security domain.
- Ability to give and receive feedback. A central part of living our core values is our environment of safe, timely, and direct feedback. We require and coach our employees on how to provide constructive and critical feedback to their peers, reports, and leadership. This can take on many forms; written, verbal, in a group setting, and one on one, and can involve topics ranging from job performance and leadership effectiveness to root cause analysis, communication, and integrity. While not always comfortable, we see the ability to give and receive feedback in a safe environment as a job requirement common across all practices and roles, and a vital aspect of our culture and continuous improvement.
