Introductory paragraph
We’re looking for a Founding Engineer to help make foundational technology decisions and mentor a growing team. You’ll build software that companies trust to shuffle packets around quickly and securely. This would be a great role for a seasoned engineer looking to join a fast-growing security startup.
What’s Firezone?
Firezone builds software that companies trust to shuffle packets around quickly and securely. Performance, reliability, and security are key.
Some of the fun, bigger technical challenges we face are: 1. Scaling WireGuard & eBPF performance to saturate the fastest network links 2. Scaling firewall configuration management to multisite topologies 3. Compiling and distributing Erlang applications across many different operating systems and CPU architectures 4. Building secure, performant native platform apps that integrate well with enterprise MDM systems
To facilitate the above, Firezone is built primarily in Elixir/Phoenix — we think Erlang and OTP provide the perfect foundation for building a secure, scalable distributed networking product (after all, it powers much of the world’s telecom infrastructure!).
The server application is split into three supervised OTP apps: fz_http for orchestration, fz_vpn for VPN termination, and fz_wall for managing the host firewall. We built it this way to support multi-site topologies (fz_vpn, fz_wall) that can be orchestrated by a central control plane (fz_http).
Some of the low-level kernel interfacing and eBPF compilation will be moving to Rust soon along with a cross-platform core client library that will power the client applications for each platform (Apple, Linux, Windows).
See our architecture diagram:
About us
My name: Jason Gong (you’ll be working with @jamilbk the CEO/CTO)
My position: Co-founder & COO
Company name: Firezone
Website: https://www.firezone.dev/
Country: United States
Company info and history (how you’re using Elixir etc) :
About the job
Job title: Founding Engineer
Salary range: $140k - $180k + significant equity (depending on experience)
Position on remote work: Remote (USA timezones)
Qualifications or experience required: Our codebase is public at https://github.com/firezone/firezone . If you think you can help, we’d love to chat!
What makes this role unique
- Your work will be public — our codebase is open source.
- Work closely with our users to ship features and fix bugs.
- Be a founding engineer - You’ll make and own core architecture decisions, shape company culture, and help set the bar for quality and execution.
Bonus points if you
- Make contributions to open-source projects.
- Love to write and share your expertise with others.
- Previously worked at a startup or have an interest in startups.
- Have experience building distributed systems on Erlang/OTP.
Perks
- Remote-first work with the option to work locally out of our Mountain View office if you’re in the Bay Area. We attend conferences and hold fun off-sites, so you’ll still get the chance to meet everyone on the team if you work remotely.
- Regular team off-sites (our last one was in Santa Rosa, California).
- Flexible budget for your ideal workspace setup. Whether it’s a custom-built beefy Linux desktop or an Apple-powered mobile workstation — build your dream battlestation to get your work done! Use whatever gear suits you best.
- Comprehensive medical/dental/vision plans.
- Flexible work hours and paid vacation.
- $100/month stipend to support open source.
About the interview process
We value the ability to learn quickly, take ownership, and ship product features over raw years of experience or company logos on your resume. Our goal is to make a well-informed decision based on your ability to do the work you’ll be expected to do at Firezone without subjecting you to a long drawn-out process. Our process involves:
- Introduction Call - A chance to connect and see if there is interest from both sides, share more about our vision and roadmap, and learn more about your experience.
- Take-home Coding Challenge - We’re not fans of live, hours-long coding interviews since they don’t resemble how most engineers get work done. Instead, we’ll give you a 1-2 hour take-home challenge related to the role. You’ll be solving a problem similar to something you’d face in your day-to-day work.
- Followup Call - We’ll hop on a call to go through the completed take-home challenge and a few technical Q&A related to the role.
- Final call - If we have any additional questions we’ll schedule a short follow up call.
- Background and reference checks.
- Offer Decision
To Apply
To apply, email us at team+foundingengineer@firezone.dev with your background or visit https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/firezone/jobs/BvqYd3f-founding-engineer.
