--- title: 'VP of Engineering at Optimal Dynamics' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/vp-of-engineering-optimal-dynamics-remote-jjg4zsmqm07h' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-01' --- # VP of Engineering at Optimal Dynamics - **Company:** Optimal Dynamics - **Location:** Remote - **Compensation:** $240k–$280k - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-10-30 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-01 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/optimaldynamics/jobs/6239676004 ## Job description ## About Our Company Built on over four decades of pioneering research at Princeton University, our platform represents the leading edge of innovation in freight and transportation planning. We help customers unlock double-digit revenue gains and drive smarter, data-driven operations at scale. Today, Optimal Dynamics is a Series C company of ~70 employees, backed by top-tier investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, The Westly Group, Activate Capital, and Koch. We're on a mission to redefine the way logistics decisions are made—and we’re just getting started. ## About Our Team We are a team of bright, kind, and solution-oriented people focused on creating value for our customers. We can solve problems individually, but understand that the best solutions are found when the team brainstorms ideas together. We are excited about balancing the need to deploy new solutions quickly and designing solutions that are secured, reliable, maintainable, and scalable for the long run. ## About the Role Optimal Dynamics is searching for a VP of Engineering who is a builder at their core. As our senior engineering leader, the VP of Engineering reports directly to our COO, leads our engineering organization, oversees engineering team managers, and serves as Engineering’s voice to executive leadership. You’ll set technical direction, turn business priorities into executable plans, and build strong, connected teams, all while staying hands-on in architecture and code. You’ll work closely and cross-functionally with Product, Design, AI, and Analytics leadership. If you see yourself as both an architect and a connector who has successfully directed fast-moving, scaling technical teams, this could be the role for you. ## What You’ll Do Lead and Steward - Oversee and enable Engineering Managers, understand their priorities, and build a cohesive, connected engineering organization - Recruit, develop, and retain great engineers, building a team that can scale - Strengthen a low-ego, high-ownership engineering culture that delivers rapid and exceptional product Set Technical Direction - Own engineering vision, architecture, and technology strategy with a focus on reliability, security, and scalability - Implement best CI/CD and QA practices–setting and defining policy on how we build, test, and deploy to production - Identify blockers and execute plans that create efficiency and excellence with a willingness to not only delegate, but step in on critical needs - Make pragmatic decisions that fit our stage, and know when to move fast and when to invest for the long term Be the Glue - Partner with AI and Analytics leadership so our AI and optimization work turns into reliable, production-grade software - Foster agreement and collaboration - clear ownership where your teams’ work overlaps and intermingles - Work with Product leadership on vision, roadmap, prioritization, and tradeoffs - Represent engineering to the C-Suite: advocate for the team, provide progress reports, flag risks early, and set realistic timelines - Join and contribute to key customer, partner, and investor conversations, providing technical credibility Enable the Organization - Implement lightweight processes, metrics, and operating rhythms that improve how fast and how predictably we deliver - Own engineering career pathing, headcount, vendors, and cloud spend - Ensure security, data privacy, and compliance standards meet enterprise customer expectations. ## Who You Are - Experienced: Our ideal candidate has 10+ years of engineering experience and 3+ years of managing managers. Your work history showcases significant time designing and building production systems. - Leader: You’ve led a dynamic engineering organization in a scaling technical or startup environment. Ambiguity energizes you. (Bonus points if you’ve grown a technical organization in a research-born company). - Technical: - You’re a problem-solver and architect; you stay current with emerging tools and your experience showcases a history of technical decisions that have guided engineering organizations into the future. - You see what’s coming on the horizon and are the SME on all technical decisions, building a stack and platform that stays ahead of the technical curve. - You've built and scaled B2B SaaS, ideally with enterprise customers. - Security Focused: You treat security as a business-level priority: continually hardening infrastructure, data, and access against external attacks and insider threats as we scale. You’ve directed ongoing SOC 2 compliance standards. - Collaborator and Connector: You excel in communicating and advocating as the go-between for engineering, product, AI/analytics, and leadership; it's part of the job that fuels you, not a chore. You connect engineers, executives, and customers alike. You can both push back with conviction and admit when you’re wrong. - Trust Builder: You’ve stepped into teams with existing managers and history before, and you know how to earn trust and build consensus. You care about the real-world impact of technical products and see the value in the optimization our product brings to the logistics and transportation landscape. Bonus Points - You’re well-versed and up to date on our tech stack (see below) - Experience with logistics, transportation systems, or similar complex operational domains Our Tech Stack and Development Practices At Optimal Dynamics, our entire infrastructure runs on AWS, leveraging a wide range of services including DynamoDB, Aurora, SSM, and SQS to power our intelligent logistics platform. Our tech stack includes: - Backend & AI: Python 3 and Java - Frontend: JavaScript/TypeScript for our web-based SPA - Data Stack: Trino, Dagster, dbt, DuckDB, and Preset - IaC: Terraform and Spacelift - Cloud: AWS (ECS/RDS/S3/etc) - CI/CD: Bazel, Github, AWS CodePipeline/CodeBuild - GenAI: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot We follow modern development best practices with all code stored on GitHub. Every pull request undergoes thorough code reviews, is fully unit tested, and deployed through our CI/CD pipeline for continuous quality assurance. Pay Range $240,000—$280,000 USD ## Benefits - Competitive compensation, including Series C level equity - Health / Dental / Vision 100% covered for employee and 50% for dependents - Life Insurance, with optional supplemental insurance - Flexible Spending Account (FSA) - Health Spending Account (HSA) - 401(k) with match - Unlimited PTO (vacation, personal days, sick days, jury duty, military leave, bereavement) - 11 Holidays - Paid Parental Leave for all employees - Short-term and Long-term Disability Insurances, and AD&D Insurance - Fitness membership reimbursement - Commuter benefits Optimal Dynamics is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive workplace with equal opportunity for all applicants and employees. Our goal is to recruit the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool regardless of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex (including pregnancy), age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Optimal Dynamics is committed to working with and providing access and reasonable accommodation to applicants. If you require an accommodation, please reach out to careers@optimaldynamics.com once you've begun the interview process. All requests for accommodations are treated discreetly and confidentially, as practical and permitted by law. ## About Optimal Dynamics ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Optimal Dynamics provides an AI-powered Transportation Decision System (TDS) that automates and optimizes strategic, tactical, and real-time operational decisions for enterprise truckload carriers. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series C) - **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States - **Founded**: 2017 (incorporated); 2018 (founded per LinkedIn); go-to-market launch in 2020 - **Founders**: Daniel Powell (CEO) and Warren Powell (Co-founder & Chief Analytics Officer) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Truck Transportation / Logistics Technology - **Target customers**: Enterprise truckload carriers (private fleets, dedicated capacity, and for-hire carriers) - **Mission or purpose statement**: To redefine the way logistics decisions are made by automating and optimizing complex planning processes, empowering teams to focus on high-impact work. ## Products & Services - **Transportation Decision System (TDS)**: A unified platform that automates and optimizes decisions across the entire truckload operation lifecycle. It includes: - **Network Management**: Intelligent, agentic freight procurement across channels to improve utilization, service, and profitability. - **Bid Analysis**: Identifies the best lanes to bid on and simulates the impact of each bid to optimize profitability, coverage, and service. - **Dispatch Management**: Real-time automated dispatch decisions, allowing a full day’s plan to be completed in minutes. - **Network Simulation**: A digital twin of the network to model scenarios and answer critical "what if" questions before executing changes. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of **$129.1M** (including a $40M Series C led by Koch Disruptive Technologies in 2024). Annual Revenue estimated at **$65.0M** (per LinkedIn). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Koch Disruptive Technologies, Bessemer Venture Partners, The Westly Group, Activate Capital. - **Growth Signals**: Triple-digit average annual growth since go-to-market launch in 2020. Headcount grew 22.2% year-over-year to ~72 employees. The company is expanding its footprint among enterprise carriers and recently closed a $40M Series C. ## Competitive Advantages - **Proprietary AI Engine**: Built on 40+ years of research at Princeton University, using a proprietary "Artificial Decision Intelligence" engine that goes beyond simple optimization to automate complex, real-time decisions. - **Comprehensive Platform**: The only "Transportation Decision System" that unifies planning, procurement, dispatch, and simulation in a single platform. - **Proven Results**: Delivers measurable outcomes for customers, including an 80% increase in productivity and a 12.5% increase in weekly revenue per truck. - **Deep Domain Expertise**: Focused exclusively on the complex, high-stakes world of enterprise truckload operations, creating a deep moat. ## Strategic Focus - **Scaling the Decision Layer**: The company is focused on becoming the "decision layer" for logistics, expanding its platform's capabilities and customer base. - **Product-Led Growth**: With a strong product that delivers clear ROI, the company is scaling its go-to-market efforts (Sales, Marketing) to capture a larger share of the enterprise trucking market. - **Continued Innovation**: Investing in R&D to further automate and optimize network decisions, leveraging the latest advances in AI and decision science. ## Why Work Here - **High-Impact Work**: Employees work on some of the hardest problems in logistics, directly seeing their contributions improve customer outcomes (e.g., double-digit revenue gains). - **Culture of Autonomy and Learning**: The company values autonomy, ownership, and continuous learning. It offers periodic courses on advanced decision analytics taught by co-founder and AI visionary Warren Powell. - **Flexible Work Environment**: The company supports a remote-first culture, believing the office is a tool for meetings and connections, not a requirement. They offer a flexible work environment. - **Strong Benefits Package**: Includes unlimited PTO, 10 paid holidays, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers (4 weeks for secondary), a $125/month fitness reimbursement, and a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for healthcare and dependent care. - **Culture**: Described as a "no-blame culture" that encourages learning and improvement. The team is described as bright, kind, and solution-oriented. - **Growth Stage**: As a high-growth company (~70 employees) with strong funding and a clear market fit, it offers significant opportunities for career growth and ownership. ## Sources 1. [optimaldynamics.com](https://optimaldynamics.com/) 2. [optimaldynamics.com/about](https://optimaldynamics.com/about) 3. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/optimaldynamics](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/optimaldynamics) 4. 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