[JOB] Ruby Technologist - Estes Park Colorado

ePark Labs has an immediate opening for a Ruby technologist in or  
around Estes Park, Colorado. If you like to drive or fly long  
distances once or twice a week, then you can live further away.


About ePark Labs
ePark Labs engineers, builds, and manages very large business  
information systems for Fortune 500 companies and a select few  
emerging-growth companies. We primarily use Ruby but do a lot of  
integration with many open-source technologies. All of our systems run  
on the internet in one way or another. Some are normal web  
applications, others run on devices and use data on the internet. We  
operate around the clock and have users in 144 countries. We automate  
almost everything to make this work with a small team of people.


About the Position
This position is for an aggressive technologist. It is more important  
how fast you learn than what you currently know. Although we value  
knowledge and wisdom. You will utilize, or learn to utilize, a broad  
range of skills including system architecture, database schema  
architecture, UI design, software engineering and development, and  
network communication. You will often work with very large data sets  
(millions to billions of records). You should "like" data. We work  
with a select group of contractors. You will communicate with them as  
needed. You will work closely with the our small team of other  
technologists. We are all technologists and do not have a distinction  
between architect, engineer, and developer. We expect people to work  
at all levels of the technology process either as a master or  
apprentice in order to understand how everything works and how  
efficiencies can be gained and lost. You will be a master and  
apprentice of different technologies at different times. We don't have  
titles per se. If you are looking for a job title to stick on your  
resume, then look on monster or dice. You'll probably find one there.  
If you are hired and require a title for some specific purpose, a  
suitable title will be bestowed upon you for the duration of the need.  
We expect you to work from the attitude of abundance. This means that  
you see an abundance of ideas and opportunities. You do not hoard  
ideas or opportunities, you are happy to share them because there are  
always more.


Time & Travel
You should be available for architecture, design, and code-review  
meetings once or twice a week in Estes Park as needed. But most of the  
time you can work from anywhere you prefer -- like in our office, in a  
cafe, hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (a lot of thinking goes  
on there), or from your house or RV parked at the beach. The first  
month or so will require quite a bit of in-person time to get up to  
speed. If you choose to work directly with customers you may travel  
once or twice per month for a system requirements or architecture  
meeting with the customer. Other than that, there is no travel  
requirement. We focus on production rather than time clocking. So you  
can work your own hours as long as goals are being met and quality is  
solid. We will provide structure if you need it. Unfortunately some  
projects require that you log your time and activity for billing  
purposes. We try to minimize this. We prefer that you do not work on  
Sunday or some other 24-hour period of your choice so that your brain  
can function at full capacity during the normal working hours.


Qualifications & Opportunities to Learn
Master (or soon to be master) of some of these languages: Ruby, Java,  
C, JavaScript (jQuery & ExtJS), SQL

Be able to write a converter between things like XML, JSON, YAML,  
HTML, etc.

Working knowledge of some of these: PHP, Python, Perl, Objective-C,  
Haskell, Lisp, Scala, PostgreSQL, MySQl, Oracle, SQLite, CouchDB,  
Lucene, Adhearsion, SVN, Git, Bash.

Know your way around UNIX. We primarily use FreeBSD and OSX. But test  
on all major platforms. You can develop on any platform you would like  
as long as "ls" does not return an error. We occasionally do some  
integration with .NET technologies so you can really use whatever you  
want. You are responsible for maintaining your own box.

Understand the concept of web services - REST and SOAP.

Able to comprehend large systems in your head and enjoy getting a  
white board dirty.

Understand the issues of i18n and hopefully have experience dealing  
with them.

Understand testing frameworks and know how to use them.

Many of the things you work on can be released as open-source.

You may or may not be a "customer-facing person". That will be  
determined by mutual agreement.

Obsession with data and system security. Enjoy building honeypots and  
watching the activity of the latest bots. Enjoy testing your social  
engineering skills on our customers. Colorado CCW a plus.


Compensation
We compensate based on performance. This means that you will receive a  
decent salary plus bonuses for how well the company and your projects  
do. If you lead or work heavily on a project and it does very well,  
you will be compensated accordingly. We do not have a 401k or other  
retirement plan. Our preferred retirement plan for you is that you  
will build your own product or company and we will assist you in  
making it into a great success. We will provide you with a laptop or  
something else if you prefer. You can put any OS(es) on it that you  
would like. If you run an open-source project that we like, we may  
consider sponsoring the development of the project as part of your  
compensation.


Next Steps
Email jobs at eparklabs with a resume and/or a description of yourself  
and your capabilities and why you think this is a good fit for you. If  
that is too time-consuming then just send your resume and let it speak  
for itself.

Please also include if applicable:
1. Some code examples in the language of your choice or links to open- 
source projects you created or contribute to.
2. Links to things you have built. If you worked on this thing as a  
team, please describe your role.
3. Links to blogs or articles you have written about technology or  
anything else you are interested in.
4. Tell what you have learned in the last 6 months and what you would  
like to learn in the next 6 months.

We will interview each other via phone, email, chat, and finally in- 
person. If we are the right fit with each other, then you can start  
immediately (Hopefully June 1).