Founded by the creator of the YOU DON'T KNOW JACK® game series, The Jellyvision Lab, Inc. creates virtual teachers, advisors, and salespeople who make online learning and decision making delightful.  In all that we do, our goal is to make complex topics simple and boring material interesting, using a combination of great design, unexpectedly funny content, and serious technology.  

Of all the virtual people Jellyvision has created, the tallest and least afraid of bears is ALEX® (www.meetalex.com). ALEX helps companies talk their employees through the tricky choices they’ll have to make, like picking a health insurance plan, deciding how much to put in the 401(k), or whether they might want extra life insurance. Our customers love ALEX because he helps their employees figure out what’s best for their personal situations, which, in turn, saves our customers a boat-load of time and money - everybody wins! As we sell more and more of ALEX, we need more and more non-virtual (i.e., real life) people to keep the virtual ones amazing. That’s where you come in.

THAT’S LOVELY, BUT WHAT’S THE JOB?

The data team’s task is to imagine and build systems that extract knowledge in order to solve internal and external client problems.  We own the end-to-end data lifecycle—from the data generated by user interactions to data applications that explain and illustrate ALEX’s incredible value to clients.  In every stage of the lifecycle, we look to address the right problems and provide impact and value by building green-fields technical solutions.  As an engineering team, we consider scalability at every step and strive to use the best tools to solve a problem.

As the newest member of the data team, you will make contributions to the evolution of our custom analytics pipeline.  You will be responsible for designing systems, refining requirements, building/testing features, and all of the other fun things that are part of a software development lifecycle. When we build solutions we consider how to combine systems that are homegrown, open source, or licensed. The data team is part of the broader platform team that is responsible for the systems that configure, build, and run Jellyvision’s conversations.  As part of the platform team, data engineers assist/consult on projects as experts when it comes to storing/modeling data.

SO WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

First and foremost, you should love the challenge of trying to extract clarity from chaotic data. Trying to understand what data means, understand where it comes from, how to store it, and how to query it is just another Tuesday for a Data Engineer. You should be capable of both identifying and employing “in the box” tools when available, but when needed be able to engineer enterprise quality tools from scratch. If you want to build systems that scale until the cows come home and are always looking to learn something new, the data team may be for you.

We have legacy code in PHP and Ruby, but with new systems are looking to move to Python. We work with both relational databases and NoSQL solutions, picking the best tool for a task.  Our code focuses on processing, aggregating, and publishing data with a focus on analytics.  Jellyvision analytics is used for both external and internal clients, helping those clients understand how products and projects provide value to their business and how Jellyvision can improve user experience.  Data engineers are responsible not just for moving data from point A to point B, they also dig through that data to pull together interesting patterns and provide them to analysts. 

Above all, you’re going to learn a lot; that’s gotta be something you want in a job. We’ll support you in your endeavors, but we really relish seeing engineers who have a passion for learning and improvement throughout their careers, and we’re going to expect that passion from whomever we hire. 

WHAT ABOUT THOSE NON-TECHNICAL, BUT EQUALLY IMPORTANT SKILLS?

• A passion for learning and experimenting with new technologies
• Experience working in a team-based environment
• Knowledge of industry standard best practices
• Great communication skills
• The patience and professional demeanor to work with clients
• This isn't an art or design position, but if you have a good aesthetic, it never hurts
• A sense of humor!

Anything else?  Yes. We share a commitment to excellence and a desire to work in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere, so we only hire nice, bright, funny people who are willing to work hard.  Our credo is a simple one: be helpful. And we think we can be most helpful if our workforce is as diverse in thought, perspective, and culture as the people who use our products. We are looking to add amazing folks to our team who will bring diversity across many lines, including race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity, sex, and country of origin.

ARE THERE ANY PERKS? Yes, we love perks.

• Competitive pay, stock options and benefits.  401(k) with matching.  And we pay 100% of the cost of premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for our employees (as long as you don’t use tobacco – if you do, you’re going to have to kick in some for the medical premiums).  We also cover a really nice chunk of the cost of premiums for spouse/partner/dependent medical, dental and vision insurance.
• Casual dress and a flexible schedule.  Come in a sweatshirt, jeans, whatever, like everyone else here.
• Creative work environment. We are lucky to work in a place that is full of intelligent, talented and innovative folks. Although most hours the place is deathly quiet (we're a focused bunch), this is punctuated with hilarious outbursts and general merriment, which makes a nice way to spend the day.
• Free food. Every week, we stock our kitchen with free healthy snack foods, and we have a “hot lunch” catered once a week to give people a reason to hang out and eat together.
• Easy transportation. We’re really close to the 'L' and the Halsted (#8) bus (right by the Apple Store and Mega Whole Foods too), and we have a transit FSA that allows you to dedicate pre-tax dollars to public transportation expenses. And a number of our employees like to bike to work, so we also have showers and lockers in the office.
• Did we mention our yoga class?  We bring a pro instructor right to the office.  Fully subsidized by Jellyvision and fully optional, btw. 
• Oh! And we have a massage chair. Not just any massage chair, my friend.  It’s the HumanTouch HT 5320 WholeBody™ Massage Chair. Feeling a little stiff? Sit down. Relax. Feel better? Good. Okay, back to work.

INTERESTED? Great, we look forward to reading your application - make sure it includes:

• A cover letter that highlights three reasons you think you’d be great for the gig, focusing on how your past work experience has prepared you for this kind of position – or why you think you can rock the job even though you don’t have past work experience that’s perfectly aligned. Writing is key to all that we do, and we weigh cover letters heavily.
• Your resume.

You will receive an auto-reply confirming that we've received your application.

If you decide to apply, please know that every complete application will be carefully reviewed.  Seriously!  We know it is a time commitment to prepare an application. And we respect that effort by thoughtfully reviewing every complete application and responding one way or the other. But that kind of thoughtful review means that it sometimes takes us awhile to get back to applicants, so please NO PHONE CALLS. The time we spend responding to phone calls and emails inquiring about where we are in the process is time that we could be spending actually moving the process along – so please be patient with us!