Introductory paragraph
We’re hiring two mid-level software engineers at Breakroom to help us further our mission of making every job a good job. There’s no need for prior professional Elixir/Phoenix experience - we’ll help you learn on the job.
About us
My name: Tom Taylor
My position: Co-founder and CTO
Company name: Breakroom
Website: https://www.breakroom.cc
Country: UK
Company info and history:
We’re Breakroom and we’re turning every job into a good job.
We’re building a community powered rating for every job in the world, and publishing it all online. We’re making sure everyone has access to great information to power the next step in their career, and we’re supporting employers to create good jobs along the way.
- We believe that everyone deserves a good job
- We believe that all jobs can be good jobs
- We believe creating good jobs is good for employers too
Over 150,000 people have used Breakroom since we launched, and we’ve rated 1,200 employers across the UK.
We’re a seed-stage startup, backed by Northzone (Spotify, Trustpilot) and Profounders (Made.com, One Fine Stay) alongside social impact investors the Resolution Foundation who help set the Real Living Wage.
We’re committed to building a world-class, inclusive team. We welcome applications from groups traditionally underrepresented in technology startups, especially women and gender minorities, people of colour, and people with a non-traditional educational background.
About the job
Job title: Software Engineer (mid-level)
Salary range: £48,000 – £58,000 + equity
Position on remote work: We’re working remotely at the moment, but expect to make an office available in September. This won’t be a purely remote position - there will be some need to come into the office - but we’ll continue to work flexibly.
What the successful job applicant will be working on:
As an engineer at Breakroom you’ll be making a difference to the working lives of millions of people in the UK and beyond.
You’ll be joining us at an early stage in our growth, and you’ll be able to make the role yours and grow as Breakroom grows. You’ll influence not just what we do, but how we do it, and play a part in shaping Breakroom’s culture for years to come.
We’re an experienced engineering team, drawing on time at the FT, Conde Nast, Deliveroo, and GOV.UK, as well as a range of early-stage startups. There’s plenty to learn, and we’re keen to develop and support a generation of amazing engineers at Breakroom.
We’re building a safe and inclusive workplace, where everyone is valued for their contribution and able to do the best work they can in a fun and supportive environment.
We’re currently working from home but we’re planning to make an office available in London (zone 1) from September. Until then we’ll get you set up at home or in a dedicated space of your own.
Job description:
We’re a three person engineering team, expanding to seven over the next few months as we grow Breakroom. You’ll be responsible for:
- Designing, writing, shipping and maintaining code
- Building internal tools and shaping our processes
Our platform is built on Elixir, using the Phoenix web framework, on top of Postgres, Redis and Elasticsearch. We love it, and think you will too. We don’t expect you to have experience writing Elixir/Phoenix and we’ll support you to learn it on the job.
You’ll need to:
- Be motivated to work towards our mission
- Have professional experience developing for the web
- Have an interest in learning and working with Elixir and Phoenix
- Have experience writing HTML, CSS and progressive JS for the frontend
- Have a working knowledge of relational databases
Some extra things that would help but aren’t critical:
- Experience writing Elixir or another functional programming language
- An interest in SEO, user experience, user research, or accessibility
- Proficiency with Postgres or another relational database
- Experience working in an early-stage startup
- Experience working in a cross-functional team
- Experience participating in operations for a high-traffic website
About the interview process
Our hiring process is designed to give you the best opportunity to shine.
First, you’ll have a conversation with one of our team, to check a few details and answer any questions you have about the role.
Then we’ll set you a short (2 hours max) take home exercise to build a simple project. We’ll use that for the basis of a one hour technical interview over Zoom with two of our team. We’ll discuss hows and whys of your approach to get an idea of how you like to think and work. We’ll also ask you to bring a story of something you’ve worked on previously and ask you to explain to us how it works.
Then we’ll ask you back for another one hour interview over Zoom, this time with two different non-technical team members, to understand your working style. In both of these interviews we’ll give you the questions beforehand, so you’ve got time to prepare and tell the best story you can.
Further info
I’m happy to answer questions about the role here, either in this post or via private message. Please apply directly on Workable:
