JELLYVISION NEEDS A FULL STACK SOFTWARE ENGINEER

We here at Jellyvision are the proud parents of ALEX®, an interactive employee communications platform that happens to share some DNA (and a sense of humor) with the smash-hit trivia video game YOU DON’T KNOW JACK®, created by Jellyvision's founder. ALEX makes navigating tricky decisions—like choosing and using employee benefits or improving your financial wellness—easier, faster, and more helpful, not to mention entertaining. The success of the ALEX platform has exceeded our wildest dreams, (except for the part right before we woke up where our mom was riding a giraffe), which is why we need talented folks like you to help us help ALEX take over the world…er…continue to grow and succeed.

SO, WHAT'S THIS JOB ABOUT?

We’re looking for a Software Engineer to join our Assembly Team. This team builds some of the internal tools that fellow Jellyvision employees use to make magic happen for our clients. This team is a band of merry  full stack polyglots, with a variety of languages in our arsenal: Ruby, Javascript and PHP are all used here, but as long as you know one of them, we'll help with the rest!

Whether you got your start with a Computer Science degree, attending a boot camp, or by writing code on the side, you know what it is to write code and you love doing it.

WHAT KIND OF TECHNICAL SKILLS SHOULD I HAVE? YOU KNOW, LANGUAGES AND SUCH...

Javascript: Our most recent and exciting server-side application is built with Node.js and Koa (if you’re familiar with Express, Koa will fit right in for you). On the Front end we work primarily with React & Redux. We have a couple legacy apps on Angular but what's important is that you have experience with some front end framework, and can apply that knowledge toward learning and building.

Ruby: We've worked with both Rails & Grape, so we're not beholden to any particular framework. If you don't have a Ruby background but you do know PHP, Perl, Python, or Node and you've got solid fundamentals, we're pretty confident you can learn Ruby once you get here.

PHP: Our more legacy app has a PHP backend. We’re building a new replacement app (in Node.js), but we still maintain it some – so some PHP experience is helpful but not necessary as long as you’re comfortable learning!

HTML & CSS: Anyone who's done some web development will have written HTML and CSS, but it’d be great if you also were familiar with templating systems and perhaps some preprocessors (e.g. LESS or SASS).

Testing: You should be the kind of person who tests their code as a part of writing it, whether that's TDD-style or writing them after the fact. You should know your way around a testing framework or two.

Databases: You should have some experience with a relational database. We use MySQL and Postgres, Generally with an ORM.

Docker: Our local environments use Docker. It's not necessary, but Docker skills are a big plus!

DevOps: We use AWS heavily at Jellyvision, and though we have experts in that area, it's a bonus to have DevOps skills.

Source Control: Experience developing software with Git, especially familiarity with git-flow, is helpful – but we can teach that if need be.

WHAT ABOUT NON-TECHNICAL SKILLS?

Jellyvision isn’t just engineers! You’ll be working closely with other teams: designers, product owners, writers, producers – you get the idea. That means you’ll find yourself talking about technical concepts with smart people who don’t have engineering backgrounds, and that you’ll need to be able to listen when they teach you about their disciplines too.

ANYTHING ELSE? 

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, 401(k) with matching and benefits. We pay 100% of the cost of premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for our employees (as long as you qualify for our tobacco-free discount; if you’re a tobacco user, your medical premiums will be higher than $0). We also cover a really nice chunk of the cost of premiums for spouse/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 catered lunch every other week to give people a reason to hang out and eat together.
• Easy transportation and lots of love for folks who bike to work. We’re really close to the North/Clybourn red line stop 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. A number of our employees like to bike to work, so we also have bike storage, showers and lockers in the office.  And for those without their own bike in the city, we offer free divvy memberships – complete with Jellyvision bike helmets you can borrow from 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 Renew 2 Zero-Gravity Massage Chair by Brookstone®. Feeling a little stiff? Sit down. Relax. Feel better? Good. Okay, back to work.

AND HOW DO I APPLY?
We look forward to hearing about you and what you do. Make sure your application includes:

• A cover letter that highlights three reasons you think you’d be great for the gig, focusing on how your past experience has prepared you for this kind of position. Writing is key to all we do, and we weigh cover letters heavily.  We love a cover letter that really shows us your personality (check out our company bios to see the wide range of personalities we’ve already got in house), but don’t stress if you’re not a comedian. You don’t have to be funny. Just be yourself. We’re mostly interested in learning who you are, what you love to do, and why you’d love to do it here with us.

• Your resume 

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

Please know that every single application we receive is read by a real live human being. However that kind of thoughtful review takes time, so it may take us a little while to get back to you (but we will, we promise). In the meantime, NO FOLLOW UP PHONE CALLS OR EMAILS, PLEASE. It’s not that we don’t love hearing from you. It’s just that time spent responding to follow ups could be spent…well…reading your application. Please rest assured that if you received a confirmation from Recruiting Robot, we’ve got your application, and will get back to you really soon. We knew you’d understand.

If you still have pressing questions in the meantime, please feel free to check out our handy-dandy FAQ page!

Thanks for your interest in Jellyvision!