Y Combinator has a small team that makes the software that runs YC. Hardly any investors write software, but YC was started by hackers so it's natural for us to solve our problems that way. Having software is part of why we're able to do things no other investor does.

The YC software is used by a relatively small number of people—mostly the YC partners and founders—but the users are sufficiently important that we are able to have huge leverage through them. YC has ambitious plans to create more innovation in the world, and the only way to reach that level of impact is to scale through software.

For an example of the kind of thing we're working on, check out this blog post.

As a member of the software team, you'll get full access to the YC program, just like founders do.  You'll learn the ins and outs of how YC works, and you'll get to follow and learn from hundreds of companies.  You'll meet the best people in the startup world and get exposed to the best startup ideas.  And of course, we'll guarantee an interview for anyone who's worked at YC.

YC was started by hackers, so we recognize good hackers when we see them. Much like when we read applications for startups, we're looking to work with people who generally impress us. If you've some impressive software before, whether for yourself or a company, that's the best qualifier we have.

This is a good job for a someone who is passionate about startups and interested in learning more about them. You should have worked at or started a startup.

The software team has a lot of individual responsibility and access to sensitive information, so we need to hire people we can trust. Your ability to make good trade-offs and exercise good judgement is particularly important to us.

The YC internal software is mostly written in Ruby on Rails. We also use: JavaScript, React, AWS, and PostgreSQL. Some experience developing web apps would be helpful, but we don't care if you've used Rails before.

Note: Hacker News is written in Lisp, but Hacker News is run by a separate team. While we don't use Lisp anymore in our internal software, we retain the original motivation for it, and welcome Lisp hackers to join us.

The YC software team is based in downtown SF. We can help you move here, but don't hire people who want to work remotely.

We offer standard startup benefits, including equity in YC. Other benefits include 401(k) matching, top quality medical/vision/dental insurance, and signature Y Combinator hoodies.