We’re hard at work building a web app. It’s cutting edge. Our API, written in Rails/Postgres, takes care of the hard stuff, like synchronizing data between offline-able clients. Our client apps use a Typescript library we developed that makes talking to our API a piece of cake. You’d be helping us develop and maintain the server-side of things.
That’s a super-brief intro on what you’ll be working on. We’ve found it’s pretty important to talk just as much (or more) about how you would be working. In other words, allow us to brag just a bit…
A Bit About Us
We build the best budgeting software around, called “You Need a Budget” or “YNAB” for busy people. For over a decade, people have been buying YNAB and then telling their friends what a difference it has made in their lives. (Google us, or read some of our reviews on the app store, and you’ll see what we mean.) We love building something that has a huge positive impact on people’s lives.
We’re profitable, bootstrapped, and growing. YNAB started in 2004 and we’re in it for the long haul. We haven’t taken any outside investor money, and we haven’t borrowed any money.
We have one overarching requirement when it comes to joining our team: ourCultural Manifestohas to resonate with you, you know, pretty deep down. If it strikes a chord with you, you’ll probably fit right in. We’re excited to hear from you.
First, let me sell you on the idea of working with us at YNAB. Then we’ll talk details on what we’re looking for.
How You’ll Work at YNAB
We work really hard to make working at YNAB an amazing experience. We have a team full of truly exceptional people—the kind you’d be excited to work with. Here’s how we operate:
Live Where You Want
We’re a distributed team, so you can live and work wherever you want. Proximity doesn’t influence productivity. As I write this, Taylor (our CTO) is in Italy. I’m not sure where he’ll be next. Not all of us travel so extensively, but the fact that he does is totally okay because we’re all adults. Just make sure you have a reliable internet connection.
No Crazy Hours
We rarely work more than 40 hours per week. There may be a few times where things go a little crazy and people log some more time. Most make sure to take some extra time off so it all balances out. We’re in this for the long haul. Don’t go crazy on the hours.
Take Vacation (Seriously)
We want you to take vacation. In fact, we have a minimum vacation policy of three weeks per year (plus two extra weeks for Christmas break). It’s important to get out and do something. Post pictures of your vacation in our internal chat room, creatively named #office_wall.
The YNAB Meetup
We get the whole team together every 12 months and have a great time. Best Western conference room, powerpoints for hours…and budget talk. Just kidding. Last year it was in Costa Rica. This year is a gigantic cabin in the mountains. We do really fun things, but the highlight always seems to be just hanging out together and having a blast.
International is Absolutely Okay
If you are Stateside, we’ll set you up as a W2 employee. If you’re international, you’ll be set up as a contractor. Employee or contractor, it’s all the same to us. You’re part of the team. (We are spread all over the world: Australia, Switzerland, Pakistan, Scotland, Canada, and all over the United States.)
If You’re Stateside…
We have a Traditional and Roth 401k option. YNAB contributes three percent whether you choose to throw any money in there or not.
Other Tidbits
Once you start, we demand (in a friendly way) that you fill out your “Bucket List” spreadsheet with 50 items. (That’s harder than it sounds!) YNAB then helps you knock off a significant item every few years.
The bucket list also really helps in deciding what we should give you for your birthday and Christmas.. No giftcards here. We tried that. Super boring.
We have a bonus plan, based on profitability. You’ll be in on that with day one. YNAB wins, you win. That kind of thing.
We’re all adults. There’s no need to punch a clock, or ask for permission to take off early one afternoon to go see the doctor. We look at what you’re accomplishing, not how long you sit in front of a computer.
Did I mention we make ahuge, positive differencein people’s lives? You may not think that matters much, but then a few months down the road you’ll realize it’s made your job really, really enjoyable. Don’t underestimate this one!
If this sounds like your ideal environment, read on because now I want to talk about you.
Now, back to your project, the web app.
You’re an experienced server-side developer that knows how to ship, monitor, and maintain large SaaS apps (not just websites). You’re an expert in at least one modern server-side framework (Rails, Node, ASP. NET, etc). You’re not necessarily the “Ops” person where you work, but you certainly understand the infrastructure well enough to aid in architecting and maintaining scalable solutions. We host on Heroku, so experience there is a bonus, but significant experience with AWS or other popular IAAS/PAAS is just fine.
You’ll help vet and improve our server-side layer, and shepherd our application through a smooth launch. We might have conversations that start like this:
“How can we be certain that our application is going to hold up on launch day? How did the other apps you worked on handle similar load conditions?”
“We want to expose these parts of the API to 3rd party developers. Will that API need to differ from our internal API, and if so, how?”
You’re our person if you:
Are an excellent developer and can adapt to new languages quickly.
Have plenty of war stories to tell about the last time you launched a big SaaS application, or weathered a massive spike in load, or recovered from an outage.
Know your way around SQL and relational databases. If the database layer turns out to be the culprit behind an issue, it’s not a black box to you. (Experience with Postgres is a bonus.)
Understand basic algorithm design and data structures: You know that a binary search is faster than a linear search, and a Hashtable/Map lookup is faster still. You might not remember all your data structures off the top of your head, but you know you have options and know how to Google for them.
Have excellent debugging skills. You know how to find problems, and how to architect apps so that problems are discoverable in the first place.
Some things you might be working on at YNAB:
Profiling our most common API calls, and acting on the information to reduce response times.
Helping architect the exposure of our API to 3rd parties (as opposed to the private API our apps use).
Working with our external database and security consultants to make sure we haven’t missed anything.
Installing monitoring tools to help us detect server-side issues.
Sounds like a great fit?
How to Apply
Click the button below and apply byFebruary 20th, 2015.
(Note that we don’t require a prepared resume because we know that not everyone is actively looking for a job – more details at the page linked above)
We look forward to hearing from you!
P. S.If you’re not interested in or available for this position, but know someone who is, we would really appreciate it if you passed this along!
