This job was posted over 90 days ago and may no longer be available.

Backend Developer

At Dataquest, we teach data science to a community of hundreds of thousands of students worldwide. We help students deeply learn concepts, build projects, work together, and gain the confidence they need to start new careers. Read more about our philosophy here, and read what students think here.

We're a bootstrapped mission-driven team of 11 people, and we've been growing quickly since we launched 3 years ago. We're a close-knit team, and we make a point to help each other out, and talk about things beyond work.

We're looking for an intermediate backend-oriented engineer with full-stack experience to help support and evolve our learning platform. We currently need the most help in upgrading our existing Django codebase, but you will also likely be jumping in on frontend interfaces, developing new microservices, and offering opinions on devops. You'll have a lot of autonomy in how you work and what you work on, as long as it's having an impact on our students.

This is a fully remote role and we are open to applications worldwide. You don't have to match all of the listed requirements to apply -- we're looking for people who can grow along with our team, so please reach out if this job is interesting to you.

Requirements

We don't have a concrete set of requirements on skills. We know that any problem you are working on requires research; otherwise it wouldn't be a problem. Rather, we'd like to describe some traits that a successful developer in this role might have:

  • You are able to dive into a complicated Python codebase and confidently make changes.
  • You think about how to measure the effectiveness of the features you work on.
  • If you're blocked on something, you instinctively find other things to contribute while you wait.
  • You contribute to architectural discussions.
  • When you need help, you provide the necessary context for someone to address your concerns without follow-up questions.
  • Sometimes you stare into space thinking about how you would explain a topic to someone less familiar with it.
  • You are eager to ask questions if you don't understand something and initial research isn't helping.
  • If a merge request deletes more code than it creates, you think it's a good day.
  • When you hear about a new technology, you wonder how it can improve your work rather than worrying about having to learn it.
  • You are often happiest in backend coding, but occasionally dabble in frontend and devops work.

Our Stack

These are some of the technologies you'll be working with at Dataquest, though you may end up introducing new ones:

  • Our frontend is a modern react/redux stack utilizing cutting edge javascript/ecmascript features.
  • Communication with the backend happens over a combination of websockets, GraphQL, and REST APIs.
  • The main backend is Django on Python 3 utilizing Celery, Django-channels, and graphene.
  • We have a few microservices in Asyncio and Node, and plan to build more.
  • We use Docker extensively, both for student code execution, and for deployment of our services.
  • Our data is largely stored in Postgres, with some caching in Redis.
  • We use git for source control and gitlab for pipelines.

Why you should work at Dataquest

At Dataquest, you'll get:

  • The opportunity to see your impact on the lives of our students every day.
  • The chance to work with an engaged and mission-driven team.
  • The chance to contribute to product direction and decisions.
  • Autonomy and control over how you work.
  • The ability to work remotely.
  • A supportive environment where you can get help when you run into blockers.


The salary range for this role is $70k USD - $90k USD per year, and it's a full-time remote role.

    Desired Skills

    Contact Info

    Posted: Feb. 19, 2018

    Apply


    Get Updates