If your dream is to grow a product with a small team that already has its legs under them, and have a big impact on a problem that matters, I’ve got some good news for you…we’re hiring a Rails programmer at Know Your Company.

My name is Claire Lew, and I’m the CEO of Know Your Company. It’s nice to meet you. My company, Know Your Company, is a tool that helps business owners with 25 to 75 employees get to know their employees better. Companies like Airbnb and Kickstarter use Know Your Company each week to improve their company culture.

Our software was originally built by Basecamp (formerly 37signals) in early 2013. Know Your Company ended up becoming so successful as a product, Basecamp decided to spin it off into its own company. In 2014, I became the new CEO of Know Your Company.

Our mission is to help people become happier at work. We believe this happens when people can communicate openly and honestly at work. As the CEO, this is also my own personal mission. I’ve felt the pain of working in a company where Know Your Company didn’t exist. Since then, I’ve made it my life’s work to help others not feel the same way.

You’ll be a one-person product team. As our sole programmer, you'll be responsible for building, improving, and maintaining Know Your Company as a product end-to-end. We’ll riff on feature concepts together, drawing from conversations you and I have had with customers. You’ll uncover the underlying jobs-to-be-done in the situations they’re facing and ensure the concepts we’ve discussed align with our overall vision for the product. Then you’ll take those concepts from sketches to code to production. What you ship will be used by over 12,000+ employees in over 15 different countries every single day.

There’s no project manager, no design team, and no user research team here at Know Your Company. It’s you and me thinking, experimenting, playing detective on how to help CEOs and employees get more out of the product. No marching orders here either — it’s us together deciding what to prioritize, what to focus on, and what to improve.

You will also serve as the primary technical caretaker of Know Your Company. You’ll be our only line of defense when it comes to the stability, reliability, and efficiency of Know Your Company running smoothly.

We’d bring you on first as a contractor, to make sure you enjoy working with us and vice versa. Then if it was a good fit, we’d bring you on full-time. Eventually, we’ll hire another full-time designer for you to work alongside with. As the company grows, we’d continue to build a team around you. And if things worked out well, you would grow into a CTO role.

We recently brought on a Head of Business Development Jess Singer a few months ago. Thanks to her, we just had our record high number of sales in December. With your help, we’re excited to build on that momentum in 2017.

Together, we’d grow Know Your Company to be a tool that improves the lives of hundreds of thousands of CEOs, managers, and employees every day.

I’m looking for someone who works fast and smart. Someone who is a clear thinker and communicator. You write clean, tidy code. While you don’t consider yourself a pure designer, you have an eye for design. You’re always up for learning and becoming better in everything you do.

You know what it means to hustle. It doesn’t matter what you’ve studied (or if you graduated from school at all), or how many jobs you’ve worked at previously. All that matters is what you’ve built. It’s likely you’ve shipped your own product (or several). You might’ve even started your own business (or several!). Throughout your life, you’ve noticed that where other people have failed, you’ve succeeded simply because you stick with things longer than most.

You’re a problem-solver at heart. To you, there’s no greater thrill than building something that helps other people. You love the process of taking an idea that’s just written on a sheet of paper, and turning it into something real and useful. You know what it feels like to be obsessed with what you’re doing…and you can’t wait to feel that again.

You exude humility. You never believe you have all the answers, and are the first to admit when you’ve made a mistake. You’re always eager to teach or explain something in a way that’s simple and friendly to others. In fact, your day is made when you watch someone’s face light up when something “clicks” for them, or when you surprise them by doing a favor that makes her or his life a little easier.

Most importantly, you believe in the vision of Know Your Company. You’ve personally felt the pain of communication breakdowns in the workplace. Or you’ve previously had a boss who you never felt comfortable giving feedback to. Either way, you’re passionate about what Know Your Company stands for, and how we can help as many people as possible become happier in the workplace.

I want to hire the best person for this role — so it doesn’t matter where you’re located. If you’re in Chicago, that’s fantastic. But if not, no worries. I’m open to working with you from anywhere. (Being in a North American timezone is preferred though, given how closely you and I will work together).

If you’re interested in working together, please send me an email at [email protected]. Tell me a little bit about yourself, share your personal story, and include any relevant work and links. Writing samples are a plus too.

This is a unique opportunity to shape a product from the first floor and up, and to help solve a significant problem. If you’re the right person for it, I’d be honored if we got to tackle it together.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
-Claire Lew
CEO of Know Your Company

---

If this doesn’t sound quite like you, but someone you might know, please feel free to pass along this post them! And, I’d really appreciate it if you clicked the ❤️ below too… That way, someone who might be a great fit will see this, too. Thank you!

PS: You might recall us hiring for this role a few years ago. Matt, our original programmer and first employee, served this role incredibly well and recently accepted a position as a partner at another company that his friend runs. We’re thrilled for him! And, even though of course we’re bummed he’s leaving Know Your Company, we are excited that this role has opened up to bring in a fresh perspective. Matt will be sticking around a bit to help around with the transition, and even is pitching in to help screen applicants for us. He, Jess, and I look forward to hopefully meeting you