Principal Rails Engineer

About the Role

Big Cartel is on the lookout for an energetic and committed Team Lead with an emphasis on backend Rails to help us build our e-commerce platform team. This role offers the opportunity to work on our platform technology that empowers creatives worldwide. You will play a key role in shaping our engineering efforts, collaborating closely with individual contributors on the team and also directly engaging in the development process. This position reports to the Head of Engineering and is instrumental in propelling our business and technical direction forward.

About Big Cartel

Since its inception in 2005, Big Cartel has helped shape the world of e-commerce, assisting sellers across the globe to earn over $3.5 billion from selling their unique creations. We're 100% independent, bootstrapped, tight-knit team dedicated to our mission of aiding individuals and small brands in setting up shop and making a living doing what they love. Our team is driven to make Big Cartel an amazing place to work and to help the independent businesses that rely on us thrive.

We not only embrace and celebrate the diversity of our customer base but also strive to mirror this in our team. At Big Cartel, we guarantee equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are committed to fostering an environment where everyone can contribute.

This Role

We're looking for a very strong individual contributor with excellent intra-personal skills. Someone who can be a phenomenal partner for non-technical stakeholders and lead a small team of engineers to deliver great solutions to customer challenges in record time.

Responsibilities

• Collaborating with the Head of Engineering to shape the technical vision and strategy for Big Cartel.

• Building, mentoring, and inspiring a team of engineers, instilling a culture of innovation, collaboration, and customer-focus.

• Contributing directly to code and supervising the design, development, deployment, and maintenance of scalable, reliable, and effective solutions.

• Working closely with the Product and Design teams to comprehend user needs, translate them into technical requirements, and ensure the timely delivery of features and improvements.

• Establishing and implementing the best engineering practices, promoting knowledge sharing, and nurturing a learning culture within the team.

• Assisting in recruitment and hiring efforts as the engineering team expands.

• Providing technical leadership and making crucial decisions that enhance the value of Big Cartel's platform.

• Help plan in-person events to build team cohesion.

Our Stack

Well qualified candidates will be very comfortable jumping in and contributing at a high level from day 1.

• Rails, Rspec

• GraphQL (as well as various past iterations of Rest APIs)

• Phlex

• Hotwire

• Alpine.js

• Docker/Kubernetes