Overview

Canopy Education Inc. is looking for a product-focused full-stack developer to help engineer the democratization of the college admissions process and higher education attainment.

There aren't many industries left that haven't been significantly disrupted by technology in some way, but you're reading about one right here! You will find many opportunities to apply high-leverage computer science (think machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, etc.) as well as plenty of opportunities for the more human side of the problem, as the current admissions process is a huge source of stress and confusion for students and parents alike. If we execute correctly, your work will impact the entire next generation of college graduates-to-be.

You will join a company whose culture centers around authenticity, excellence, and balance. You'll find that everyone likes to keep things simple and transparent. You'll find everyone to be goal-oriented and hands-off as long as you are a self-starter. And you'll feel right at home if you don't like sitting in front of a computer all day for hours on end.

But for those times we do sit in front of a computer, we are a polyglot functional programming shop, with emphasis on Haskell, PureScript, and ES6. Our infrastructure and non-mission-critical tooling tends to be in whatever works best for the task at hand: sometimes that's one of our main languages, other times it's Ruby or bash—basically, it's a team decision based on whatever sits at the intersection of appropriateness, developer joy, quality, and velocity.

As an early-stage company headquartered in Cambridge, MA, we have a strong preference for key members of our team to be located in the Boston metro area; however, given that our company has its roots in remote work, we are open to remote arrangements given one year of continuous employment and/or executive approval.

Requirements

You know you are right for this position if:

• You have at least five years of professional software engineering experience, and at least two years of preference for a high-level programming language that's used in industry, like Haskell, Clojure, OCaml, Erlang, F#, or similar.
• You have some front-end experience with JS or a functional language that compiles to JS, like Purescript, Elm, Clojurescript, or similar. ES6 + React ecosystem are bonuses.
• You are a self-starter and internally motivated, with a strong desire to be part of a successful team that shares your high standards.
• You have great written communication skills and are comfortable with making big decisions over digital presence (e.g. video chat).
• You have polyglot experience along several axes (dynamic/static, imperative/functional, lazy/strict, weird/not-weird).
• You are comfortable with PaaS like heroku. Or even BaaS like Firebase. Your preferred db is postgres. You have basic but passable sysadmin skills.
• You are fluent with git.
• You instrument before you optimize. You test before you ship. You listen before you conclude. You measure before you cut. Twice.

Benefits

We offer a competitive salary and a full suite of benefits, some of them unconventional, but awesome for the right person:

• Medical, dental, vision insurance and 401k come standard.
• Flexible hours with a 4-hour core - plan the rest of your workday as you wish, just give us the majority of your most productive hours. Productivity ideas: avoid traffic, never wait in line at the grocery store, wake up without an alarm clock.
• Goal-based environment (as opposed to grind-based or decree-based environment; work smarter, not harder). We collaborate on setting goals, but you set your own process for accomplishing those goals. You will be entrusted with a lot of responsibility and you might even experience fulfillment and self-actualization as a result.
• Daily physical activity/mindfulness break + stipend: invest a non-core hour to make yourself more awesome by using it for yoga, tap-dance lessons, a new bike, massage, a surfboard - use your imagination! Just don’t sit at a computer all day! Come back to work more relaxed and productive and share your joy with the rest of the team. Note: You must present and share proof of your newly enriched life with the team in order to receive the stipend.
• Equipment/setup budget so you can tool up the way you want. A brand new 15" MBP is standard issue if you have no strong opinions.

Remember: We’re a startup. You’re an early employee. We face challenges. We have to ship. Your ideas matter. You will make a difference.