Lead Software Engineer

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About NearSt

NearSt’s mission is to get people back into high street shops. Our retail tech platform makes shops’ in-store inventory data visible to the internet, so that anyone anywhere can see what’s in stock in their local shop. 

Companies like Google and Facebook use our technology to show live in-store inventory on their platforms to millions of shoppers searching nearby, sending online shoppers into physical stores.

The world of retail is changing dramatically, and shoppers are going online to find products offline, locally more than ever. Our fast-growing tight-knit team of 25 share a common vision that what we’re building will define the future of how everyone shops - a vision that’s secured backing from some of the best names in retail as we lead this wave of transformation.

About our engineering team

NearSt is a collaborative place, which means we work together and no one gets left behind. We value positive, open communication. Learning is important. We are willing to sacrifice development velocity to provide a positive workplace for engineers because we believe that a happy team makes the best product. 

Our platform is predominantly built using the following technologies: Node.JS, React/Next.js, AWS (Lambda, S3, DynamoDB, Kinesis, SNS, Athena & Glue), Serverless and Cube.JS. We also use Epsagon and Sentry for monitoring our services.

About the role

We are looking for a Lead Engineer to join our friendly and awesome team. You will be collaborating with our developers and product manager to set the technical direction for the team. 

A few of our goals for the year are to 

• Continue to tune our data ingestion platform to handle billions of data points daily

• Build new advanced reporting capabilities for our shopkeepers

• Launch local checkout to our whole network

• Ship admin and ad management features to support enterprise customers

• Add new Ad integrations

What you’ll be doing

On a day-to-day basis, your work will be a combination of:

• Own the technical roadmap, working with the product manager to align the product vision with the technical strategy to make sure the platform is stable and new features can be accommodated

• Play an active role in hiring the best talent and providing a structure for them to execute to an awesome standard against the road map, across engineering.

• Support engineers in their career progression and personal development.

• Champion around potential for the platform and help educate the wider team on the tools we build or use.

• Fostering a culture that blends continuous personal growth, high standards and caring personally for both colleagues and our customers

• Evaluating and balancing the needs of rapid new product development, stable and secure architecture, and keeping technical debt manageable

• Manage and track platform costs understanding what features cost to operate and helping stakeholders make informed decisions

Projects Lead Engineers have recently worked on

• Built the MVP for the new inventory experience

• Hosted codebar at the NearSt HQ

• Redesigned the ads integration to allow more flexible scheduling

What you’ll bring

• Experience of developing a cloud native, serverless platform, ideally on AWS

• Experience of working with one of Node.js, Python, Java, Ruby or similar on a modern web platform

• A love of breaking down complex problems into actionable chunks 

• You actively follow and enjoy discovering new tools and processes that can help improve developer experience and productivity

• Experience working in an agile team delivering a high quality product

• Ability to discuss technical ideas and issues with non-developers

• Empathy - you enjoy bringing out the best in people to achieve collective goals

• Critical thinking - you enjoy constructive discussions and debate to get to the right answer

Why we think you’ll love it here

NearSt is a collaborative place, which means we work together and no one gets left behind. We value positive, open communication and see learning as an essential pillar of our collective growth as a company 

At our Shoreditch HQ you’ll find music, food, plants, the occasional dog, and spaces for focussed and collaborative working. On Friday you’ll usually find us celebrating the week with a drink (or two!) as part of our weekly roundup too. 

We are all united in our enthusiasm for what the future of retail holds (hear our CEO talk about this during our keynote at The Next Web), and believe we have an incredible opportunity to make a massive positive impact on the world.

Startup life is always a lot of work and a ton of fun, so we’ve focussed hard on putting a great framework in place that lets people do their best work. 

• Semi-Remote Team 🌍 We work as a semi-remote team, where our Hoxton Square office is a hub for collaboration and team-oriented work and home is a place for deep focussed work. Each team sets their own schedule based on their own needs, and all new joiners get a budget to make sure their home is set up as a great space to work. Engineering work remotely as their default model and work out for themselves if they need to attend the office.

• Tech and Software 💻  Whether you’re working at home or HQ, you’ll benefit from the latest MacBooks and freedom to suggest the software that will help you do your best work, rather than updating spreadsheets and waiting for apps to load.

• Stock Options 💰 Everyone should share a stake in our success, so if you’re a full time employee you’ll receive stock options when you join. 

• Wellness Budget 🧘 Stay at your best with a monthly wellness budget to spend as you please on things to keep you happy, healthy and well. Whether that’s on meditation apps, healthy food subscriptions, or gym memberships. If it keeps you well, it’s covered.

• Mental Health Support 🌸 Taking care of your mental health is just as important as your physical health, so we provide professional and confidential support from the wonderful therapists at Spill, directly in Slack.

• Personal Growth ✨ Develop personally and professionally with an annual budget of £1000  for you to upskill in ways that suit your own learning style - whether through books, training courses, or attending events.

• Mindset 💭  We cultivate an entrepreneurial can-do mindset; brilliant ideas can and must come from everywhere in the business and we have working groups and regular meeting to ensure these ideas find their way to fruition.

• Purpose 🌟  Work among a team who genuinely want to make a massive positive difference in the world

Our job spec is here to give you an idea of what the job and the company are like -  if you are interested and excited by the role please do apply even if you don’t think you meet all the requirements.

If you want to chat with us about the role before applying, just email dev@near.st and your message will go straight to our Product Engineering team! 

We think a great workplace is filled with all the diversity the world has to offer. This means we make no judgement about the things that make you, you - whether that be gender, religion, sexuality, race, or a secret love for 80s action films. If you’re excited by our mission, we’re excited to meet you!

Application Process

We think a great workplace is filled with all the diversity the world has to offer. This means we make no judgement about the things that make you, you - whether that be gender, religion, sexuality, race, or a secret love for 80s action films. If you’re excited by our mission, we’re excited to meet you!

We use Applied for applications, which means we don’t ask for a CV and instead review answers to a short set of questions. We do this as we believe in making recruitment as fair and unbiased as possible. 

If you want to chat with us about the role before applying, just email careers@near.st. 

There are five interview stages for this role. 

• 5 questions submitted and reviewed blind using Applied

• Take home exercise (max 2 hours)

• One to one interview with Lead Engineer (1 hour)

• Skills & Experience interview with the product engineering team (1 hour)

• Culture & Ambitions interview with the co-founders (45 mins)

We can’t wait to hear from you.