Senior Developer
San Francisco / Remote /
Engineering /
Full-time
BackerKit enables thousands of creators worldwide to focus on doing what they love.
Our software is the premier platform for backer management, empowering project creators to manage their creative endeavors with confidence.
We’re a profitable, self-funded start-up with a diverse, close-knit team that prizes creativity, enthusiasm, and a willingness to learn.
We’re hiring a software developer to join our engineering team! While our office is in San Francisco, this position is remote friendly to anyone in the US.
If you're interested in working with a great team and amazing customers to constantly improve the way creators interact with their fans, we’d love to chat about how you can help us build, scale, and improve our market-leading platform.
As an engineering team, we work iteratively and we purposely avoid thinking too far into the future when deciding what to build. BackerKit has made it this far by listening to our customers and building what makes sense. As we grow we’re considering the balance of reduced assumptions and increasing capacity and we’re excited for new members to help us find that balance.
The founders are a developer/designer duo who met while working on Diaspora, the first highly successful crowdfunded open source software project. Our commitment to helping creative people be creative starts with them and drives us every day.
What we’re looking for in a developer:
- You enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that comes with deploying code just as much as you appreciate a tough technical challenge.
- One of your goals as a developer is to teach your skill set to others. You’ve spent a lot of time honing your skills, now it’s time to give back to less experienced team members and get them performing up to their potential.
- You love to pair. We pair 80% of the time. We use this time to teach, learn, and to get things done. You’re comfortable with managing these sessions and ensuring everyone is getting the most out of them.
- You’re excited about Ruby on Rails! We believe (for now) in The Majestic Monolith and we value solving problems for our customers over trying out new technologies in production.
What we’re working on:
- Solution-oriented platform improvements
- Strategic integration with other platforms and providers
- Automation of work previously done by creators and BackerKit team members
- Creating new tools and products that build on our existing successes
- Always new things
What working at BackerKit will look like:
- You will make important technical decisions that have sweeping consequences for our customers and the business.
- We’ve set aside focused pairing blocks to allow devs to focus on pairing and also accommodate for different timezones. In this time, you’ll rotate through pairing with all the members of the development team. The rest of the day can be variable with meetings, shaping time, or more pairing depending on the day.
- We rotate pairs every day. We spend our pairing time very focused, so we make sure to take frequent breaks throughout the day and a full hour for lunch.
- You will be expected not to work long hours and/or weekends and you will not be expected to answer communications outside of working hours. The only exceptions will be when the app experiences unforeseen issues, which you will have an active role in avoiding.
- You will provide product input. We are a small team that moves fast, so it is important that you speak your mind and give feedback on how we can make things better/faster/stronger.
- You will continue to help the team release early and often. We deploy at least once a day. Frequently more often than that.
- You will understand our users. Everyone at BackerKit is customer-facing, and we expect everyone to get to know the project creators we are serving (plus, they are awesome, just like you!).
Skills and experience we'd like you to possess:
- You’ve spent a decent amount of time (4-5+ years) working on a fairly large Rails application.
- You are great at communicating. You can easily verbalize problems and ideas with the team, are excited about leveling up the people around you, and enjoy sharing success with your coworkers.
- You have the ability to "look around corners", asking why more than once which allows you to get out in front of problems.
- People enjoy working with you because you're great at what you do. Your skill and work ethic encourages the entire team to improve their craft.
- You like to make small, calculated improvements where necessary, and focus on getting things done when appropriate.
- You are conscious of your current level of productivity and happiness, and make continual changes to grow.
- You are entrepreneurial. We trust everyone on our team to make bold choices and do what is best to grow the company.
Benefits of working at BackerKit
- Remote-first position on a distributed team
- Competitive salary and stock option plan
- Annual company profit sharing
- Stipends for supporting creators of your choosing
- Medical, dental, vision, and FSA benefits
- 401k plan (with employer match!)
- Family-friendly and focused on maintaining a healthy work/life balance
- Annual Learning and Development stipend to support your professional growth.
BackerKit is a remote-first workplace (United States only), and we welcome applications from any eligible US-based individuals regardless of location. In the future, we may require annual or semi-annual travel to the SF Bay Area for company events.
If you feel like your skills and past experience will match well with our mission and our team, regardless of anything above please reach out. We'd love to chat!
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
We here at BackerKit will always respect pronouns and identities when addressing candidates who feel comfortable sharing theirs.
BackerKit is committed to a culture of inclusion and belonging. We believe that crowdfunding is for everyone, and strive to build a company that reflects the diverse backgrounds of the creators we currently serve and hope to serve in the future.
