Category Archives: Hiring

We’re Hiring a System Administrator – Work at SpatialKey

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We’re hiring a system administrator to build out and maintain our SaaS infrastructure. Come join our small team at SpatialKey.

About SpatialKey

SpatialKey is a Software as a Service (SaaS) mapping and data visualization product. We think it’s awesome. We create tools that let enterprise customers take large amounts of data they might have about their businesses and turn it into information they can use. We’ve been involved in a number of industries, from law enforcement to marketing, but over the last year we have turned our attention to focus on the insurance market. Check out the progress we’ve made over the last two years in our 2011 and 2012 year in review blog posts.

About the team

We have a small team, and we’re incredibly proud of that. We doubled in size last year and currently have 10 full time team members, 7 on the tech team and 3 on the business team. We would love for you to be number 11. We are firm believers in the power of focused teams of only top talent. Staying lean and agile has gotten us where we are, and we plan to keep things that way.

We’re all remote and work from home in 7 different states: CA, TX, NY, NM, CO, HI, and NV. We talk everyday on Skype or Teamspeak, and we live on IM during the workday. Working remotely has its own set of challenges; so we require someone who can be productive and work autonomously, but who knows the right time to reach out for help.

We’re a small, scrappy, profitable company, but we don’t work ourselves to the bone. We’re the kind of people who are doing this because we love it and it fascinates us. We think about the problems we’re solving while lying in bed before going to sleep. We’re definitely looking for someone who shares that passion.

About the job

You will be responsible for the growth and maintenance of our SaaS infrastructure, which is built on the Amazon EC2 cloud and supports customers from all over the world. Amazon has allowed us to build an infrastructure that spans both coasts and will soon be expanding into Europe. You won’t just spend your day maintaining servers. We want someone that can architect from the top down to build a scalable, redundant architecture that will take us into the future.

Upon starting you will be responsible for two key projects: The first is improving our East coast infrastructure by implementing improved redundancy for our Postgres database tier. The second is a West coast build out on Amazon EC2 that will be used for disaster recovery. You won’t have to deal with the red tape that restricts you in most enterprise administrator positions. We move swiftly and are always innovating, so your ideas will be implemented in days, not months.

With SpatialKey, you get the chance to put your stamp on our offering and see your ideas come to life. You will also work close with our highly skilled development team and have the opportunity to do some development if you choose.

About the technology

We love technology and new stuff excites us. We are constantly pushing the envelope to find new ways to innovate and make our product better. That includes your contribution to finding new technology to solve business problems. This is not a job where you will only be maintaining servers. We want you to help us drive innovation.

Our current infrastructure is built on the Amazon EC2 environment, primarily on open source software. Here are a few examples of the software that you would be working with: CentOS, Apache, Tomcat, Haproxy, PostgreSQL with PostGIS, Rabbit MQ and MongoDB.

About you

We are looking for a talented system administrator who can take full responsibility for our infrastructure and continue to improve our architecture scalability and availability. We don’t have enough people to pass the buck, although, we work very well as a tight knit team and lean on each other’s experience.

We value our clients data and privacy, so a person of high integrity is a must. You need to be a self-starter and able to work autonomously and in small teams. You also need to be self-motivated and continuously keeping up with new technology to drive innovation within SpatialKey.

Required experience:

  • Well-versed in administrating Linux environments (RHEL or CentOS)
  • Experience with architecting a production infrastructure from the ground up
  • Ability to work under pressure and deliver to deadlines, on a self-driven basis
  • Experience working in a time-sensitive 24×7 production environment
  • Experience with troubleshooting software bugs, installation issues, and performance issues
  • Apache /​ Tomcat web / application server experience
  • Experience with PostgreSQL server
  • Deep understanding of networking security concepts and firewall management
  • Experience with Python/Bash/Perl scripting
  • Define, implement and test verifiable backup and recovery procedures
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills
  • Ability to be proactive and work independently with limited direction
  • Experience in designing and reviewing security controls for Cloud-based deployments
  • Broad technical foundation and understanding of network, operating system, database and application development design and support
  • Ability to analyze issues and recommend solutions for the detection, remediation and prevention of security vulnerabilities
  • Experience in developing and reviewing Hardening guidelines for Linux Operating systems in line with industry best practices.

Preferred experience:

  • Deep experience with building a highly available and scalable PostgreSQL infrastructure
  • Experience with building out an infrastructure on Amazon EC2
  • Ruby scripting
  • Experience with object oriented programming (Java, C++)
  • Experience configuring and maintaining Mongo DB
  • Experience with Monitoring and performance tools (Nagios, Cacti, Tivoli, OpenView, Splunk, etc.)
  • Experience with SaaS certification (SAS 70, ISO 27001….) will be an advantage

How to apply

It’s easy, email us your resume and tell us why you want the job. You can email jobs-at-spatialkey.com. This isn’t a big HR hiring department thing, so speak directly and let us know why you’re a good fit for what we’re looking for. Compensation will be commensurate with experience; but if you’re worried about us meeting your salary requirements, please include your required range when applying.

We’re Hiring a Developer – Work at SpatialKey!

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We’re hiring a developer to join our small team at SpatialKey.

About SpatialKey

SpatialKey is a mapping and data visualization product. We think it’s awesome. We create tools that let enterprise customers take large amounts of data they might have about their businesses and turn it into information they can use. We’ve been involved in a number of industries, from law enforcement to human rights work, but we have most recently turned our attention to focus on the insurance market (yes, that’s a “pivot” in startup-speak). Check out the progress we’ve made in the insurance market in the last 12 months in our year in review blog post.

About the job

You will develop mapping and data visualization apps for the insurance market. Part of your time will be doing custom client work and part of your time will be doing in-house product development work for SpatialKey (mostly still focused on insurance). For the client work you’ll need to work directly with clients to help define project requirements; you’ll be involved in every phase of the project, from planning all the way through the coding and delivery. You’ll also be working with a dedicated Project Manager, dedicated UX designers, and our lead developer, so you’ll have a support network. Experience consulting or interfacing with clients is helpful. We don’t know what your title will be, if you need it to sound super important like Senior Principal Architect Developer IV or something we can make that happen, but really we’ll introduce you to our clients as “the guy who wrote everything you click.”

And in case you think insurance sounds boring, here are some of the fun apps we’ve worked on in the past 12 months:

  • an app that calculates flood risk for properties throughout the UK to allow an insurance underwriter to quickly decide whether a property is insurable or not
  • a terrorism app to find areas where a bomb, if detonated, could produce the most damage to surrounding properties
  • hurricane forecasting applications that let you play god and drag around hurricanes to instantly see the effect a storm might have if it diverges from its path
  • For even more apps we created in 2011 (and video demos), check out the SpatialKey 2011 Year in Review blog post.

Here are few screenshots of some of the apps we built recently:

 

About the team

We have a small team and we’re incredibly proud of that. We’re currently 3 engineers (2 clientside, 1 serverside), 1 product manager (who’s also a jack of all trades and runs our EC2 infrastructure), 2 user experience designers, and one CEO (who also takes on the bulk of our sales effort and lands us the big deals). We are firm believers in the power of small, focused teams of only the top talent. Staying small, lean, and agile has gotten us where we are, and we plan on keeping things that way.

We’re all remote and we all work from home from 6 different states: CA, TX, NY, NM, CO, MI. We all talk everyday on Skype and we live on IM during the workday. Working remotely has its own set of challenges, and we require someone who can be productive and work autonomously, but who knows the right time to reach out for help.

We’re a small, scrappy startup, but we don’t work ourselves to the bone. We’re the kind of people who are doing this because we love it and it fascinates us. We think about the problems we’re solving while lying in bed before going to sleep. We’re definitely looking for someone who shares that passion. We don’t want you slaving away on Saturdays, but we hope you’re fascinated enough by your work that you can’t help thinking about it in the shower.

About you

We need someone who can take full responsibility for projects. We don’t have enough people to pass the buck. You’ll be in charge of the development effort for projects that our customers are depending on, and we need someone who will own that responsibility.

Flex development – you should have a number of years developing and shipping Flex apps. Everything from custom component development to app architecture to styling and skinning.

Consulting vs product – Consulting experience is a plus, but working on a shipping product is also a plus. An ideal candidate is someone who has shipped a product to paying customers, and also who is comfortable with running a conference call with a client.

Decent eye for UX stuff – if something doesn’t work right you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty and tweak the UX to make it work. We have dedicated UX guys you’ll be working with, but you should be comfortable “filling in the gaps”. That might mean we have wireframes that get you 80% there and you’ll have to use your skills to figure out how to design whatever interactions or screens are missing.

Passion for data – our core mission is to take data and turn it into useful information. That’s a lot harder than it sounds, and it’s harder than churning out pretty infographics. Our ideal candidate loves working with data, whether that’s on a map or in other capacities.

About the technology

SpatialKey, as it is today, is a clientside Flex application. It’s large – a few hundred thousand lines of code. We are built on top of the Flex 3.6 SDK. I can already hear you saying: “But what about Flex 4.6? What about HTML 5?” All good questions, and I’ll be straight with you: we have an existing, impressive app, high paying customers, and difficult (in a fun way) business goals. The best business decision for us is to remain focused on improving our existing codebase, while at the same time starting to experiment on the side with new technologies (mainly Javascript and HTML alternatives to Flash/Flex). You’ll play a key role helping us deliver kick-ass Flex apps, but we’re also going to make sure you can build up our HTML/JS and native mobile app capabilities. You, like all current Flex developers, should be excited to expand your skillset.

How to apply

It’s easy, email us your resume and tell us why you want the job. You can email jobs-at-spatialkey.com. This isn’t a big HR hiring department thing, so speak directly and let us know why you’re a good fit for what we’re looking for. Compensation will be commensurate with experience, but if you’re worried about us meeting your salary requirements please include your required range when applying. Please send examples of the work you’ve done. That can be a public product we can check out, a GitHub repo, a blog with code we can read, etc. We want to see that you’re passionate, you love what you do, and that you’re good at it.