Head of Experimental Engineering Full Time

Consumer Reports (CR) is seeking a Head of Experimental Engineering to help develop new tools that grow consumers’ power, privacy, and access to informed choices.  In this role, you will report to the VP, Innovation Lab. You will serve as lead technologist on a fast-moving team, owning technical roadmaps and architectures, and undertaking projects to strengthen CR’s pedigree in the field of public interest tech.

You will foster a culture of curiosity and engineering excellence, implementing systems to enable continuous learning. You will manage at least one full-time staff research engineer, and grow our roster of contractor and volunteer talent, while rolling up your sleeves and contributing directly to key software development efforts.

HOW YOU’LL MAKE AN IMPACT

As Head of Experimental Engineering, you will help CR nurture new technologies and solutions that advance consumers’ interests, and which can be scaled up by CR or like-minded partners.  You will also realize opportunities to publish and share our work with relevant practitioners and strengthen CR’s technical pedigree. Your work will help reinforce CR’s reputation as a top destination for public interest tech talent.

Through your direct leadership of experimental engineering and your keen sense of CR’s innovation strategy, you will strengthen CR’s overall enterprise performance and accelerate time-to-market for new products and services.

ABOUT YOU
You’ll Be Highly Rated If:

• You are a career computer science professional with a 10+ year track record of experimentation with emerging technologies. You’re equally comfortable reading foundational papers and slinging Python.
• You’ve got a track record of shipping in diverse organizational contexts:  You’ve contributed creative engineering or technical perspectives to help achieve institutional objectives, and know how to manage cross-functionally when necessary.
• You focus and deliver: you are steeped in the practices of an effective engineering culture; you can manage an ambitious big picture and keep teams focused on scope and delivery.
• You think in terms of systems and systems change: you’re excited by working in a public interest technology setting, and have an appetite for undertaking audacious projects that can make the market better and fairer.
• You’re an exceptional communicator: you can translate complex technical topics for lay audiences, and educate internal stakeholders on potential applications of emerging technologies.
• You’re a natural mentor: you know how to attract, motivate, and grow promising technical talents.

You’ll Be One Of Our Top Picks If:

• You’re strongly grounded in the culture and practice of open source: with experience developing/contributing to new code libraries or demonstrating feats of creative engineering. You can help CR conceive and execute an effective open source strategy that enables technical contributors to take part in our development process.
• You have an entrepreneurial spirit: that includes real experience building things that people want to use. You’ve tasted success in the market and have also learned from failures.
• You’re excited about potential applications of generative AI for good: you’ll have an opportunity to help CR develop technical competencies to help more effectively monitor the impacts of generative AI and build pro-consumer AI tools.