Fullstack Engineer

Salary/Benefits: $90k-$135k, Equity Options, Health, Dental, Vision

Experience/Pay Levels: Senior, Experienced/Mid-Level

Prioritized Relevant Skills: Python, Javascript, Vue, Serverless, Containers, ORMs, Complex SQL

Location: Remote, East Coast or Central Timezones, Meetings limited to beginning between 10a-3p EST

About the Job

UpContent is growing! We’ve found our market and we’re ready to take our platform to the next level. To help us get there, we’re looking for an empathetic, experienced, and growth-oriented Fullstack Engineer to take a leading role in improving our existing Python backend and Vue frontend. If you’re an eager self-starter, excellent communicator, and passionate relationship-builder, you just might be our person.

About UpContent

As the #1 Content Curation technology, we help marketing, HR, and sales professionals deepen relationships and build trust with their audiences by serving as their “air traffic control” for third-party content. Our platform, UpContent, helps users discover, collaborate on, and distribute this content for use on social media, an email newsletter, a website, or even their company’s digital signage systems. Our integrations and partnerships with other content marketing tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, HubSpot, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Getty, Wix, and more, make curation even more streamlined and accessible.

Our values of trust and relationships carry through to how we “get things done”. We believe you work best when well-rested and living a whole life and while we require some time flexibility as a startup we believe that goes both ways and offer flexible hours, unlimited vacation (3-5 weeks suggested), and remote work. 

About the Role

The first major project you would be undertaking would be to optimize our initial load including our Vuex store, API calls, switching some high cost/volume db calls from ORM to optimized SQL functions, and investigating areas of improvement such as API caching and API batching. This role will heavily own the Frontend and API and focus on the interconnections between these pieces.

Our backend stack is primarily Python with some other languages on select services, deployed to containers and serverless functions in AWS. Our main app frontend is in Vue/Vuex with other frameworks in use for secondary apps.

Sometimes you may be tackling projects alone and other times collaborating with other engineers or even pairing. You’ll be expected to communicate and collaborate with people outside of engineering as well. While we believe in effective mentorship this is also a startup so a higher than average amount of independence is needed and this is a role best suited for those who favor autonomy and trust over hand holding. 

About the Team

UpContent is currently made up of 7 people. The Engineering team has 3 people: the Engineering Director,  a backend engineer, and backend focused fullstack engineer.

About You

• You enjoy a high degree of autonomy and responsibility in the technical direction of the backend architecture.
• You thrive working both independently and as part of a team.
• You’re able to see the big picture while managing the small details that make the big stuff possible.
• You are comfortable taking initiative and finding new, creative ways to solve problems or delight the customer. 
• You’re always learning and growing and experimenting with new tools and processes.
• You appreciate constructive feedback and aren’t afraid to ask questions.
• You are kind and empathetic.
• Excited about being part of a growing company and taking ownership of the growth of the business
• Solid communicators and be able to manage work independently
• Self-motivated and responsive to the needs of the team

Job Requirements: 

• At least 2 years of professional fullstack experience with 4 year degree or at least 4 years of experience without
• Experience with the following technologies whether professionally or on a personal project*
• Python or other similar backend language
• A modern frontend framework such as Vue, React, or Angular
• A modern state management library such as VueX, Redux, MobX, or RX.js.
• REST  APIs, ORMs, SQL,  git
• At least cursory knowledge of modern deployment (CI, Infrastructure as Code,  Serverless, Containers)
• Motivated to take a leading role in how we scale our architecture and improve our algorithms. 
• Comfortable coming into an unfamiliar large code base with technical debt (5+ year old product) and delivering features  while working with the team on how to  pay that down, prioritizing the biggest wins in maintainability, scalability, and stability
• Comfortable working with integration partners and customers on occasion
• Should be able to participate in architectural choices and do independent research necessary to make these decisions well
• Should be able to optimize  initial page load from Vue/Vuex code to APIs to DB

* To count a technology personal project as experience, we will either want to see that project if open source or want a code sample along with some discussion about the challenges you faced. It will need to be large enough and complete enough that you have faced common challenges and reached a reasonably full day to day understanding of working with that technology.

Bonus Points

• You have experience in working in a startup environment.
• You have an understanding, and appreciation, of the problem we are working to solve.
• Comfortable mentoring and onboarding developers as we grow

Interview Process

We view the interview process as a collaborative discovery process where we work together to determine whether we are a good match for each other. Questions are not only welcomed but encouraged, at all phases of the process. 

We favor a higher number of  shorter rounds since we’re remote and that can be easier for candidates' work schedules. Most folks will spend less than 8 hours total. We will provide some questions in advance of actual interviews. Total process  generally takes about 4-8 weeks depending on candidate availability. Our target is to extend an offer late February or early March for a March or April start date.

Round 0 (15-20m, 13 candidates max, usually less than 8)

• Video Interview (15m): 5 pre-provided get to know you questions. Can also record ahead if you prefer.

Round 1 (45m-1 hr total, 8 candidates max, usually less than 5)

• Video Interview (45m-1hr): We get to know each other, clarify your resume/experience, talk about experience levels and rough pay range numbers. Conducted by the Engineering Director.

Round 2 (30-45m total, 5 candidates max)

• Video Interview (30-45m): Both technical and non-technical questions.  Conducted by the Engineering Director.

Round 3 (1h - 1h 30m total, 3 candidates max)

• Interview Prep (15-30m): Will provide some questions ahead of time for you to come prepared for
• Video Interview (45m-1hr): Both technical and non-technical questions.  Additional engineers may join. 

Round 4 (2.5h - 6h total, 2 candidates max)

• Code Assignment (15m -30m): Look over the assignment and install any dependencies
• Pairing  (1-2h): You will be meeting with the Engineering Director to do some pair programming and further conversation.  
• Phone Chat with CEO (1hr): Get to know the CEO and talk growth.. Topics include things like an exit strategy, time frames, and similar topics,  as well as any business or financial numbers you want to know. 

Round 5 (Optional, 1h)

Meet the Team (1hr): Meet the whole company. Will have a chance to ask questions without managers around.