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by joelgascoigne 4500 days ago
Buffer (http://bufferapp.com)

Hey everyone, hope your weekend is off to a killer start!

February just came to a close and Buffer stands at 1.4M total users served by a small 16 person team spread across 12 cities and 5 continents. 130,000 of our users are actively using the product each month. We generated $333,000 in February, and we have $520,000 in the bank. The average salary at the company is $98,000 and our total funding to date is $450,000 which we raised in December 2011, for which we gave up 14% of the company. I'm sharing all of this because one of the highest values we have at Buffer is to be fully transparent, and I'd love for you to be part of the incredible journey we've embarked upon.

At 16% month over month revenue growth on average in the last 6 months, we're seeing increasing demand to build out the product further and help our fast-growing customer base with all their social media problems. To achieve this, we'd love your help with some interesting engineering challenges.

Do any of these areas stand out for you? I'd really love to hear from you:

    - Reliability Hacker (we're sending 400,000 posts to social networks every day,
      our architecture is still not ideal)
    - Happiness (Support) Hacker (we have a crazy obsession for customer happiness
      and want to build our own tools to go beyond what's normal)
    - Android Lead (our Android app has half a million downloads but currently no
      full-time developer!)
    - iOS Hacker (our favorite people who use Buffer are all crying out for an
      iPad app)
    - Growth Hacker (our landing page conversion is at 7%, we'd love your help
      improving it and many other metrics)
    - Frontend Hacker (last month 130,000 people used Buffer, we'd love to improve
      our dashboard interface and extensions for them)
Some of the tech we work with: PHP, Python, MongoDB, AWS (Elastic Beanstalk, Elasticache, SQS), Backbone.js, Grunt.js, Android, iOS).

    - We're completely open about salary and equity, in fact here is a spreadsheet
      of all individual salaries: https://docs.google.com/a/bufferapp.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgrWVeoG5divdE81a2wzcHYxV1pacWE1UjM3V0w0MUE&usp=drive_web#gid=1.
      It's most likely you'd fall into a range of $85,000-$120,000 and 0.1%-1%.
    - We're a fully distributed remote team, and we come together 3 times a year for
      super fun retreats. The last one was in Thailand in December, our next is
      Cape Town in April!
    - We have a big focus on culture, that's the main thing we think about when someone
      joins the team. Here is our slide deck of values: http://www.slideshare.net/Bufferapp/buffer-culture-03 
I'll read through emails with our CTO Sunil, I hope yours might be part of that. Send him a quick note at thenexthacker@bufferapp.com. If you'd like you can check out more details about all the areas we need help with at http://jobs.bufferapp.com

I'm excited about the chance to work with you. If you have any questions about our culture, product or journey so far, add a reply to this - I'll be checking throughout the day to get back to you :-)

- Joel (Founder/CEO)

11 comments

really impressed by your walking the talk and being open about user and revenue numbers.
wow, thanks so much! let me know if I can ever help you with anything :-)
Joel, are you guys looking for full time only or are there any part time positions as well?
Hi! right now since it's still the early set of people for the team and we're establishing the culture, we're looking primarily for people who will be fully on board full-time. in the future I think we might reach a point where part-time could start to work. Hope that helps, let me know if I can answer anything else :-)
What kind of PHP/etc related skills are you looking for? I wonder whether I could get in?

http://justpaste.it/adnanprofile

Hey Joel,

I checked out the jobs page on the site and there doesn't seem to be a listing for internships? Do you guys offer any internships, specifically for college students?

Thanks, Viral

Hey Joel,

You and Buffer continue to be awesome. If I ever shut down my startup and work for somebody, I'd first apply to you. Is that a good enough compliment? :-)

- Manu

Hey Joel,

You guys are doing a great job by taking the openness to a new level - love that! Sent an email for your backend position, would love to hear back from you.

Regards

Hi Joel, I see that the reliability hacker position wasn't filled yet, are you looking to hire DevOps/System Engineers or looking at hackers only?
Hi Michael, we're certainly in need of help in terms of DevOps and Systems Engineering challenges too. Our architecture has a lot of room for improvement and we'd benefit a lot from having someone focus on systems. Let me know if you have any more questions here!
Hey Joel, Love Buffer's work culture and company philosophy! keep it up. BTW have you guys filled up your UI design position? Adit
Hey Adit, thanks so much for the kind words, it's comments like this that make me excited to get out of bed every day and continue building the company and reflecting on the culture! We're still looking for help with design, would love to hear from you :-)
Really happy I decided to read this thread before heading to bed tonight! Now to manage the waiting game. Thanks, Joel!
Wow, so happy to hear that! Excited to check out your email :-)
Joel, I sent Sunil an email. When do you think I'll hear back by?
Are you at all considering hiring interns for the upcoming summer?
We've pondered this a lot and have decided this Summer will be a little early for us to be set up for internship positions. I'm hoping we might do it next Summer!
What if the intern acted as though it was full-time? I'm asking because I would be interested in applying for this summer. I know you're not looking, but I think I could really make an impact.
Joel, are you open to sponsoring H1B visas?
Yes, absolutely! I am a Brit living in San Francisco and my co-founder is Austrian. We know this process well having been through it personally for both of us and several others in the team.

Our philosophy is that we should all have the opportunity to be in the single place on Earth that makes us the happiest and most productive, and we want to encourage you to find that place and help you be there. We have a fantastic immigration lawyer we work with and 100% success rate obtaining visas.

You sound like an amazing CEO :) I really dig the company culture. If Buffer isn't hiring for Summer internships, I suppose hiring for a 16-month internship is out of the question?
Wow, thanks so much. I still have a huge amount to learn :-) Luckily there are a lot of great books out there and mentors around who I can learn from in order to try and become the best CEO I can be.

I think there's a chance a 16 month internship could work, be sure to get in touch :-) If you're self-driven and can add to the team and help us move forward, we'd definitely take a look!

Done and done. Expect a pleasant email from me, Joel :)