Vice President of Software Engineering

Company Description PaperWeight AI is a start-up developing and commercializing an innovative shelf event-sensing system designed for modern retail environments. Using a paper-based sensor combined with advanced AI algorithms, the platform enables real-time inventory monitoring, supports out-of-stock prevention, and helps address retail organized crime. It also powers omnichannel, real-time marketing by connecting shelf activity directly to digital engagement. PaperWeight AI can be retrofitted onto existing shelves, significantly reducing deployment complexity and cost of ownership, making it attractive to retailers seeking scalable, intelligent store infrastructure. We’ve already piloted the technology with companies such as SONAE MC (Continente) as featured on national television Uma folha de papel que sabe quando a prateleira está vazia And won the national innovation prize for 2025 - National innovation prize Role Description This is a hands-on position. Working closely with our CTO and Director of hardware, you will own the software platform and lead the team responsible for building it. You will oversee how data from field devices is ingested, transferred, stored, processed, delivered, and integrated with our customers’ retail systems. You will own: ●      The software platform end to end: data acquisition, stream processing, storage and database, APIs, deployment and monitoring. ●      Scale: taking ingestion, storage and processing from a handful of shelves to hundreds and then thousands of devices. ●      Integration into our customers' retail systems: getting our counts and events into the inventory, replenishment and reporting systems retailers already use. Qualifications ●      Backend and data engineering at scale: stream processing, time-series storage and databases, query and cost at scale, running more than one instance, migrations under load. You've taken a system from “works for a pilot” to “works for a fleet.” ●      IoT / connected-device background: you’re familiar and experienced with device ingestion (MQTT or similar), real-time data pipelines, fleet monitoring and field updates, and the failure modes along the device-to-cloud path. ●      Integration with retail or enterprise systems (strong plus): experience integrating data into the systems customers already run: inventory, ERP, POS, replenishment or reporting, and working with a customer's IT to get it live. ●      Full-stack software leadership: data acquisition, backend, APIs and front-end. ●      Familiar with signal processing and algorithms: comfortable working with data scientists and algorithm scientists as well as embedding and testing algorithms in the code ●      Operations-hardened: you've owned systems in live operation, not just in development — comfortable in the field and on-site, close to how the fleet behaves in production. ●      Scientific discipline: proper validation, held-out data, and the judgement to tell a real result from noise. ●      Leadership: you've hired and grown engineers and run a team to real, measurable outcomes. ●      Experience: 8+ years, including leading an engineering team. Candidates with these qualifications will be considered favorably ●      Electronics or electrical engineering background. ●      Signal processing depth, or capacitive / pressure / physical sensing. ●      Embedded or firmware familiarity ●  Retail, logistics or industrial IoT.