ePark Labs has an immediate opening for a Ruby technologist in or
around Estes Park, Colorado. If you like to drive or fly long
distances once or twice a week, then you can live further away.
About ePark Labs
ePark Labs engineers, builds, and manages very large business
information systems for Fortune 500 companies and a select few
emerging-growth companies. We primarily use Ruby but do a lot of
integration with many open-source technologies. All of our systems run
on the internet in one way or another. Some are normal web
applications, others run on devices and use data on the internet. We
operate around the clock and have users in 144 countries. We automate
almost everything to make this work with a small team of people.
About the Position
This position is for an aggressive technologist. It is more important
how fast you learn than what you currently know. Although we value
knowledge and wisdom. You will utilize, or learn to utilize, a broad
range of skills including system architecture, database schema
architecture, UI design, software engineering and development, and
network communication. You will often work with very large data sets
(millions to billions of records). You should “like” data. We work
with a select group of contractors. You will communicate with them as
needed. You will work closely with the our small team of other
technologists. We are all technologists and do not have a distinction
between architect, engineer, and developer. We expect people to work
at all levels of the technology process either as a master or
apprentice in order to understand how everything works and how
efficiencies can be gained and lost. You will be a master and
apprentice of different technologies at different times. We don’t have
titles per se. If you are looking for a job title to stick on your
resume, then look on monster or dice. You’ll probably find one there.
If you are hired and require a title for some specific purpose, a
suitable title will be bestowed upon you for the duration of the need.
We expect you to work from the attitude of abundance. This means that
you see an abundance of ideas and opportunities. You do not hoard
ideas or opportunities, you are happy to share them because there are
always more.
Time & Travel
You should be available for architecture, design, and code-review
meetings once or twice a week in Estes Park as needed. But most of the
time you can work from anywhere you prefer – like in our office, in a
cafe, hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (a lot of thinking goes
on there), or from your house or RV parked at the beach. The first
month or so will require quite a bit of in-person time to get up to
speed. If you choose to work directly with customers you may travel
once or twice per month for a system requirements or architecture
meeting with the customer. Other than that, there is no travel
requirement. We focus on production rather than time clocking. So you
can work your own hours as long as goals are being met and quality is
solid. We will provide structure if you need it. Unfortunately some
projects require that you log your time and activity for billing
purposes. We try to minimize this. We prefer that you do not work on
Sunday or some other 24-hour period of your choice so that your brain
can function at full capacity during the normal working hours.
Qualifications & Opportunities to Learn
Master (or soon to be master) of some of these languages: Ruby, Java,
C, JavaScript (jQuery & ExtJS), SQL
Be able to write a converter between things like XML, JSON, YAML,
HTML, etc.
Working knowledge of some of these: PHP, Python, Perl, Objective-C,
Haskell, Lisp, Scala, PostgreSQL, MySQl, Oracle, SQLite, CouchDB,
Lucene, Adhearsion, SVN, Git, Bash.
Know your way around UNIX. We primarily use FreeBSD and OSX. But test
on all major platforms. You can develop on any platform you would like
as long as “ls” does not return an error. We occasionally do some
integration with .NET technologies so you can really use whatever you
want. You are responsible for maintaining your own box.
Understand the concept of web services - REST and SOAP.
Able to comprehend large systems in your head and enjoy getting a
white board dirty.
Understand the issues of i18n and hopefully have experience dealing
with them.
Understand testing frameworks and know how to use them.
Many of the things you work on can be released as open-source.
You may or may not be a “customer-facing person”. That will be
determined by mutual agreement.
Obsession with data and system security. Enjoy building honeypots and
watching the activity of the latest bots. Enjoy testing your social
engineering skills on our customers. Colorado CCW a plus.
Compensation
We compensate based on performance. This means that you will receive a
decent salary plus bonuses for how well the company and your projects
do. If you lead or work heavily on a project and it does very well,
you will be compensated accordingly. We do not have a 401k or other
retirement plan. Our preferred retirement plan for you is that you
will build your own product or company and we will assist you in
making it into a great success. We will provide you with a laptop or
something else if you prefer. You can put any OS(es) on it that you
would like. If you run an open-source project that we like, we may
consider sponsoring the development of the project as part of your
compensation.
Next Steps
Email jobs at eparklabs with a resume and/or a description of yourself
and your capabilities and why you think this is a good fit for you. If
that is too time-consuming then just send your resume and let it speak
for itself.
Please also include if applicable:
- Some code examples in the language of your choice or links to open-
source projects you created or contribute to. - Links to things you have built. If you worked on this thing as a
team, please describe your role. - Links to blogs or articles you have written about technology or
anything else you are interested in. - Tell what you have learned in the last 6 months and what you would
like to learn in the next 6 months.
We will interview each other via phone, email, chat, and finally in-
person. If we are the right fit with each other, then you can start
immediately (Hopefully June 1).