Rails Backend Developer (Full-time, Remote)

We’re seeking a full-time, remote Rails backend developer in Europe or on the US east coast.

About the Work

• You’ll be the sole Ruby on Rails developer.
• You’ll mostly work on the business logic of our web platform, and only occasionally work on the views (our frontend developer usually handles that part in a separate Next.js app).
• You’ll join a small product team consisting of 1 frontend developer, 1 part-time TypeScript backend developer, 3 designers, and 1 product manager.
• You’ll report directly to the founders (one of whom is technical) and periodically collaborate with people outside the product team.
• You’ll play an active role in the shaping and scoping of new features.

About You

You must naturally thrive working independently. Furthermore, you should be:

• Impatient — You must have an insatiable desire to constantly move things forward and take action without asking for permission.
• Comfortable in uncertainty — You must regularly dive into complex problems and systems without knowing all of their details upfront.
• Something to prove — A desire to show the world what you’re made of; ambition matters.

Our Development Principles

The following principles have served us well; you should at least be open to them:

• Get to production — We want to get things into their real environment as early as possible and then rapidly iterate from there. This means constantly shipping incremental pieces, whether it be directly to customers, behind feature flags, on an obscure URL, as a script, or some other form.
• Constantly fight the urge to do more — Everyone, including yourself, will naturally slide towards wanting to make the thing a little bigger and a little better. You must be vigilant in pushing back to avoid scope creep.
• Testing means clicking — Automated tests are great, but actually using the real thing, in a browser, with production data is indispensable. A feature is not tested if you haven’t tried it the way the end-user will.

About Baymard Institute

Baymard is an independent UX research organization of ~50 people distributed across the US and 10 different European countries. Most work as UX analysts and researchers.

We conduct large-scale UX research studies and publish the findings in our SaaS platform. (It’s primarily this platform that you’ll be working on.)

We offer:

• A flat organization with a long-term focus.
• Lots of responsibility from day 1.
• Organization that is remote from the ground-up.
• Founders engaged in the product (both are active in the product team).
• Flexible hours.
• Room for growth.

See the “key work values” section for a description of each of the above bullets.

Practical Details

• Salary: competitive, matched to your skill and ambition.
• Location: remote full-time position from either US east coast, Europe, or Africa. (Most of the product team is located in Europe)
• Start date: as soon as possible.
• Language: fully proficient in written and spoken English.
• Travel: limited; expect only 0-1 week of optional travel each year (in connection with an optional, company-wide meetup).

How to Apply

1. Describe how you fit the role and share evidence of extraordinary ability (max. 1 page). (Required.)
2. Examples of code you’ve written (either attached or as links to public Github repos, PRs, commits). (Required.)
3. A link to your LinkedIn profile or a resume (PDF). (Required.)

We don’t have a developer position open right now, but to be notified about future positions at Baymard, then sign up for our job notification email (1-click unsubscribe + only 1 text e-mail per job posting).

If you want to prepare the best possible, consider reading our SaaS sales page and the “work values” section below.

Sincerely,
Christian & Jamie, founders of Baymard Institute

Referral Bonus: If this job isn’t you, but you know someone who’ll be the perfect fit, please send them the link to this page. If we end up hiring the person you referred, we’ll give you 1-year access to a Baymard Premium ‘Specialty’ plan (normally $2,600/year).

Key Work Values at Baymard

The following work values are central to us at Baymard and hopefully gives you an idea of our culture and what working at Baymard is like:

• Flat organization – Baymard is a small organization of just ~50 people. This means zero management layers between you and the final decision. You’ll have direct access to and impact on decision making.
• Lots of responsibility – From day 1 (OK, maybe day 2), you will be working on final products or services. We believe the best way to learn is to work on actual products and challenges, supplemented with rich early feedback.
• Long-term focus – Decisions are always based on their long term impact. We’re not interested in hunting after the next “quick win” — we want to make a lasting impact on the e-commerce industry and usually adopt a 5-year perspective in our decisions and projects.
• Remote from the ground up – 100% of the team works remotely. We’ve deliberately designed the organization around remote work. That said, we do bring the entire team together for a week once a year somewhere interesting in the world.
• Team of ‘subject matter’ nerds – Everyone geeks out a bit on their work interests. We love that, and once a week someone from the team gets the opportunity to do a 20-minute presentation on their latest obsession — whether it’s quasi-quantum-worlds, critical thinking, or the proper usage of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.
• Founders engaged in the product – We believe it is essential that those orchestrating the work of the organization are keenly in tune with all aspects of it. The two founders of Baymard have therefore performed every type of task in the organization themselves (from programming to UX testing), and continue to work directly on the product.
• Flexible hours – Beyond ensuring availability for meetings and a few hours of daily overlap with your colleagues, you are largely free to plan your own workweek. E.g., we have some that take a 2-hour break midday and then instead work in the evening, or only work half a Tuesday and then always work half a Saturday.
• Room for growth – We believe that everyone should be able to grow in their job — both as a professional and as a person. Therefore, each member of the team gets a clear, step-by-step overview of their progress, internal masterclasses, team summits, and more.