TechEmpower, El Segundo: Full-time web/mobile application developer needed for in-person OR remote

Thank you for your interest in this job opening at TechEmpower. We appreciate your consideration and take every application seriously. Instead of just e-mailing us your resume, we ask that you complete this web form. We know it is a bit more work for you to fill out a form, but it helps us find the best candidates.

Before we get to the application form, here is the description of the job:

TechEmpower, El Segundo: Full-time web/mobile application developer needed for in-person OR remote

We hire people, not skill sets. If you're a motivated, creative developer who wants to work in a lively and encouraging environment, let's talk.

Over the past 23 years we've cultivated a great group of people to work with. Our developers are smart, thoughtful, respectful, opinionated, dedicated, and fun. We don't hire often, but when we do, we value these qualities as much as technical abilities.

Founded by a former computer science professor, we keep the same feel as a small computer science lab (without the long hours):

Challenging and varied projects
An informal, comfortable environment
Intelligent, engaged people
Stimulating and respectful technology discussions
Frequent mentoring
A culture of camaraderie and helpfulness
A uniquely egalitarian approach to development and design

Because teams at TechEmpower are small, ranging between 2 and 6 people, we need developers who can work on every aspect of an application ("full stack" developers). We rely on individual developers to do much of their own software design, with guidance and discussion. It's yours to build, and we want you to build it.

A typical developer works on one project at a time, but over the course of a typical year will get exposure to up to 2 or 3 different projects, and each new project means new technologies, new people, and new approaches. We work hard to improve each other's technical capabilities, so you'll never stop learning.

We do work for clients, but from our office in El Segundo or remotely from home. We pride ourselves on doing the best we can for our clients. This means helping them to really understand what they need, careful planning and design, and on-time, on-target deliveries, while maintaining a sensible work/life balance. You'll build quality applications and have fun doing it.

We're open to people who want to work in our El Segundo office or fully remote or would prefer a combination.

Job Qualifications

The technologies we use vary over time with our mix of projects. Here is a snapshot of what we're using now:

Languages: Java, JavaScript, Python, C#
Tools: Git, Docker, Jenkins (Continuous Integration), Sonar (static code analysis), IntelliJ, Eclipse, Ant, Maven, Prettier (code formatting), Playwright (end-to-end testing)
Web: Jersey, .NET Core, Svelte, React, Django, Node.js, Servlets, jQuery, etc.
Mobile: iOS, Android, React Native
Hosting: AWS (EC2, RDS, etc.), Rackspace Cloud, Linux deployments
Data Persistence: ORM (Hibernate, etc.), Postgres, MySQL, NoSQL (Redis, etc.)

We don't expect new hires to have experience with all of these, but we do expect you'll learn more about them working here.

If this sounds like the kind of place you'd like to work, please apply!

About Us

Founded in 1997, TechEmpower (also see our Web Framework Benchmarks) offers a comprehensive compensation and benefits package including a fun, casual work environment. Meeting project deadlines and goals is absolutely crucial, and we strive to plan ahead well to avoid crunch times. People here are friendly and supportive, and open to helping each other work through technical challenges. We all enjoy the chance to help a coworker dig into a problem and come up with the best solution. Our design process is uniquely egalitarian, and encourages rapid professional growth. Everyone on a project team participates in design and technology decisions. We want people who can contribute ideas to make each project the best it can be!

Contact Information

Full Namerequired

E-mail Addressrequired

Phone Numberoptional

Personal URLoptional

Cover Letter (The Most Important Part)

In the space below, please introduce yourself and tell us why you're a great fit for our company.required

Qualifications

Programming language you are strongest with:required

Second-strongest programming language:required

Years of web-application development experiencerequired

Years of other programming experience, professional or otherwiserequired

Are you legally authorized to work in the United States?required

Will you now or in the future require TechEmpower to commence ("sponsor") an immigration case in order to employ you (for example, H-1B, Student Visa or other employment-based immigration case)?required

Other technologies you have at least one year of work experience with:required

Resume

There are two ways to send us your resume. You can either upload a file (PDF or text), or you can paste the text into the field below. Either way is perfectly fine, but please only do one or the other.

If your resume is in a PDF or text file, upload it here.

NOTE: Only files with names ending in ".pdf" or ".txt" will be accepted. Microsoft Word documents are not accepted. Maximum file size is 10 MB.

File to upload:

If your resume is simply plain text (which is fine!) then you can paste it into this text area instead of uploading a file.

Your Opinions

We value the opinions of our developers, both principled stances and quick instinct-informed judgments. We need our technical people to think deeply about technology but also react quickly on their feet.

We pose the following questions as open-ended solicitations of opinion. There are no right answers and we certainly do not expect you to be familiar with or have an opinion on everything.

For all cases, we encourage you to expound on your answer. Tell us why you feel the way you do.

But to be clear: all of the following opinion questions are optional.

What is your favorite programming language? Why? What would you change about your favorite programming language? Are there any web or mobile technologies you would like an opportunity to work with but have not yet had a chance? What attracts you to them? As with above, are there languages you would like the opportunity to work with? Why? What is your opinion of JavaScript? If you use JavaScript, what recently added features do you most enjoy using and why? What is your opinion of node.js? What is your opinion of Java? If you use Java, what recently added features do you most enjoy using and why? What is your opinion of PHP? Do you prefer statically typed or dynamically typed languages? Why? Preferred text editor or IDE? Why? Mobile: Native applications or mobile web? Web: Svelte/React/Vue/Angular/etc. or roll your own CSS and script? SQL or noSQL? How would you go about estimating how many requests per second a well-performing web application with trivial functionality running on an Amazon EC2 Large instance should be able to service? What is a technology you had expected to dislike but turned out to like? What is a programming pattern you encounter frequently but wish people would handle differently? Describe a situation where a collaborator convinced you to change your approach on a technical matter. Describe the time you remember having the most fun programming. What has worked well for you working remotely? What has not worked well?