- Do you love learning new technologies and working with a modern tech stack?
- Do you like coding for long stretches of time without interruption?
- Do you thrive in a high-stress environment filled with political infighting, bureaucracy, and corporate nonsense?
If so, then we are the place for you, except you might hate how nice of a company we have - filled with happy, generally competent people that don’t put up with jerks. Frankly, it makes me sick how nice everyone is.
We are remote full time, have very flexible hours, people are judged by their output, not by how much they suck up to the boss, and turnover is super low because the company believes that happy employees = happy customers = happy bank account. Simply disgusting, if you ask me.
--Is this a real job ad?--
Yup! Amazingly enough, we actually paid money to post this on a bunch of different job sites. And it’s not even a pyramid scheme! Plus, get this: the owner just started paying our 30+ employees with money instead of Pizza Hut coupons - we’re big time, people.
Our careers page is actually worth checking out to learn more about how insane we are:
http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/
--What do you guys do?--
We are an $11 million E-Commerce company who is developing ERP software for in-house use that we are committed to launching as a B2B SaaS product. The way we handle inventory and Product Management is (in our humble opinion) really damned good and we’re gonna blow the competition out of the water.
On the ecom side, we have 1,500+ consumer product SKUs including things like this:
--What is your company like?--
1. Full Time Remote/Flexible Hours. You will be working from home in your pajamas, on your schedule. And we don’t care if you work 10 hour days 4 days a week or want to catch up on the weekend. So long as you put your hours in and get your work done, we’re happy.
2. Complete Work/Life Balance. If you’re routinely working more than 45ish hours, you’re gonna get a friendly talking-to. We want you to be operating at 100% capacity, which means that you need to rest.
3. You Can Be Yourself. You don’t have to put on a fake, professional face. You can just be yourself. You can talk smack to the CEO, and no one will think anything of it.
4. We Are Committed to Good Development Principles. We strongly believe in clean and maintainable code. We encourage good testing practices and have a well-functioning CI/CD pipeline . Code reviews are also a regular part of our workflow. If you like the Joel Test (you should), you’ll like it here.
5. Strongly Anti-BS. Anybody in the company can (and is expected to) tell the CEO when he is wrong. There are no bureaucratic or BS rules getting in the way of getting work done.
6. No Micro-Management. Once you’re trained and have demonstrated you know your stuff, we are pretty hands-off. In fact, if you need external management to stay on-task and motivated, we probably aren’t the place for you.
7. Supportive Environment. We don’t operate via intense stress or unreasonable top-down deadlines. Everyone wants you to be successful – internal politics are at a minimum here.
8. No Toxic People Allowed. We try very hard to screen out mean people before they get in, but in case they slip through, we fire them quickly. Imagine never having to interact with toxic people at work - how nice would that be?
9. We’ll Invest in Your Training. We want you and everyone to get better constantly. You’ll be learning new things all the time, and are strongly encouraged to invest time every day to learn new things, improve your system/work process, and just generally try to make your life easier.
10. Four Weeks Vacation. We 100% want you to recharge, so having plenty of time off is absolutely worth it.
--What are your company’s values?--
Yes, those are legitimately our values. The careers page is definitely worth checking out - it’s not just normal corporate BS. We promise you’ll learn a lot about us.
--What will I actually be doing?--
Super short version:
Helping build really good tools/webapps so that people other people’s lives are easier.
Here is a bulleted list of responsibilities:
- Build web pages in React, HTML, and CSS
- Build RESTful APIs using Nodejs and MySQL
- Write unit tests
- Perform code reviews
- Assist in several Documentation and Quality Assurance tasks
- Automate specific processes using scripting
- Collaborate with the rest of the engineering team to design and launch new features.
Like everyone else in the company, you will also need to innovate regularly - which means figuring out ways to improve quality and production speed.
It is challenging, but fun work that’s going to require a lot of time and task management, problem-solving, and a reasonable amount of people skills.
--Can you tell me more about the ERP?--
Managing 1,500 SKUs, all of which require manufacturing, with many dependencies, random vendor lead times, multiple warehouse requirements, and highly variable sales rates = a fun optimization problem! We are aiming to make it super easy for E-Commerce companies to stop stocking out, stop wasting cash on dead inventory, and to make more money because they have the business intelligence to make the right decisions.
--Are you funded?---
We’ve been growing our E-Commerce since 2014 and are entirely self-funded. We are plenty profitable, have lots of cash, and are not beholden to investors. We are investing heavily into this product and are committed to seeing the project through.
--Does management understand software development?---
They really do. This is a “it’s done when it’s ready” kind of place. You will not be forced to push ugly code just to meet an arbitrary deadline. The CEO has taken every delay in stride and hasn’t applied false pressure to ship something. No BS - if you like developing and shipping quality products, this is a great place to be.
--How much development experience do I need?--
While we do not demand a set number of years of experience, this is definitely a role where you need to come in with good knowledge of full-stack web development. However, we will absolutely support you by paying for courses and whatever else you think you need to improve.
--Do I need a college degree?--
You just need to be awesome, though a college degree can sometimes help demonstrate that to us.
--Is there a team in-place?--
We have a small team of full time developers based in Ghana at the moment. They are really good. Like, really good. And also really nice. You are basically guaranteed to really like working with them. They won’t allow any dummies/slackers on the team, so you won’t have to worry about working with losers.
The team lead is a former university professor with a ton of industry experience. He’s worked on many huge and complex projects and has been coding since when developers loved Windows 98. You’ll certainly be in good company.
--What tech stack do you use exactly?--
We use Typescript, Python, React, Node, React Native, GCP, AWS, Redis, MySQL, Circle CI, GraphQL and MongoDB.
--Do I need to know the entire stack?--
Of course not! We still have no idea why some people even expect that. You should know React and Node pretty damn well. Beyond that, as long as you are willing to learn, you should be fine. Problem solving ability >>>>> specific stack knowledge.
--This sounds pretty good, though I’m still skeptical that this isn’t a pyramid scheme.--
You and the IRS both!
--That doesn’t resolve any of my fears, but what do I need to do to apply?--
Please complete the following application:
https://jlstradingco.applytojob.com/apply/gakupiFkj9/Junior-MidLevel-Software-Developers-At-Fun-Profitable-Ecom-SaaS-Co-FT-Remote
We promise to respond within 5-10 business days even if our answer is No.
There will be multiple steps in this process, FYI, including a written application, interviews with potentially a few different people, and work tests including a paid one. Hiring the right people is really hard and very expensive if we do it poorly, so we have to front-load the process. I'm sorry about that and thank you for sticking with us.
Once you’re in our pipeline though, I would anticipate giving you a final answer within a few weeks, depending on how it goes. We definitely don’t want to string you along, and as long as you do what we ask, we promise to tell you “yes” or “no”, and to not just ghost you (like everybody I match with on Tinder).
Thank you for your time and interest, and I hope we can work together soon!
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JLS Trading Co. provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, JLS Trading Co. complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
JLS Trading Co. expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of JLS Trading Co.’s employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.