Product Developer - Zoobean

The Big Picture

Can you bring your creative and visionary skills to help us build a ridiculously useful product? You will have the autonomy, access, and support to do meaningful work that has a huge impact on our current client population of over three million readers. A contagious enthusiasm for Zoobean's mission and the passion to learn is essential in this role.
You will join a scrappy, dynamic, and fun crew of twenty-five full-time teammates, including ten full-time product team members. The best part is that you get a unique opportunity to use your strengths and skills to challenge others to read more. After all, reading is to the mind as exercise is to the body.

About Us

Zoobean’s flagship products help people achieve reading goals by tracking reading and participating in reading challenges. We serve over 7,000 public library and school clients in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Over three million readers currently use our platform, Beanstack, to track their reading, earn incentives, and stay motivated to read.
Our Shark Tank appearance brought us Mark Cuban as an investor. We have since picked up Kapor Capital, Militello Capital, AlphaLab Gear, RevUp Capital, and the AT&T Aspire Accelerator as believers and backers to our wonderful cause. Our customers range from big to small and include Los Angeles Public Library, Hawaii Department of Education, and the Department of Defense.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with other product team members to develop and maintain a growing set of applications and features.
• Contribute across the full technology stack.
• Analyze problems and consider existing architecture as well as future functionality when developing solutions.
• Assist customer support specialists to diagnose and patch reported issues.
• Optimization of the application for performance and scalability.
• Discuss technical issues with peers and non-technical team members.
• Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of software development experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience working with Cloud solutions, services, or products.
• Proficient knowledge of Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, and SQL.
• Analytical thinker with exceptional problem-solving skills.
• Solid understanding of engineering and design best practices, especially as it relates to scaling high traffic and data-heavy applications.
• Experience with code refactoring, design patterns, and application security.
  Strong communication skills, ability to effectively communicate with co-workers and clients.
• Must be self-motivated with the ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Experience with developing either internal or external facing documentation.

A Big Plus

• Experience working in a startup environment - able to juggle multiple projects and switch tasks throughout the day.
• Familiar with collaboration and source code management tools such as Github, Jira or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of Performance Management tools like New Relic and Papertrail.
• Previous experience with designing, building, and scaling an application to support load changes related to growth.
• Experience designing, building, and/or maintaining RESTful APIs.
• BA/BS degree in Computer Science, related degree or equivalent practical experience.

Salary and Benefits

• Salary will range from $90,000 to $120,000 commensurate with qualifications and experience.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance available.
• Opportunity to work from home at least two days a week. (We are working remotely full time through at least the end of 2020.)
• At least 15 vacation days annually + a one-week winter break from Xmas Eve to New Year's Day.
• Participation in the company's 401k and quarterly bonus plan for employees.
• Tuesday and Friday lunch on your company credit card.
• $1,200 annual professional development stipend.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We believe diversity breeds innovation. We're building a product that helps librarians, educators, and families everywhere, and to do that well, we need a workforce that’s representative of the population we serve. We are actively looking to add members to our team who will bring diverse backgrounds, new perspectives, and a willingness to challenge us to improve the work we do every day.
 

From the Heart

At Zoobean, we live out three core values that are represented in our logo:

• Love: We are passionate about the work we do and give everything we can to our customers, investors, and each other.
• Inclusion: Our company grew out of a calling to help children and families see themselves in the books they read. That same commitment to diversity runs through all we do and gives each of us an opportunity to express our full selves while feeling a sense of belonging to a larger community.
• Awesomeness: This one speaks for itself.

If this hits you in the heart and mind, then come work with us.

Please submit resumes to: [email protected].