Careers at Backstop

Superb Software Developers

We're looking for excellent, experienced software developers. You should have at least a bachelor's degree in CS and be comfortable with the idea of getting your hands dirty in every aspect of an end-to-end software creation process, from feature conception to product delivery. Also, unless you're new to the scene, you need be comfortable with environments where any management is generally self-driven (there are "managers" at Backstop, but they try not to manage things unless asked to).

Our technology stacks are heavy on the server side, Java and Rails-oriented, but that doesn't stop us from using the right language or tool to solve a particular problem. We love using Ruby to drive the browser and API tests of our Java applications, building Fitnesse suites to organize our Scala-based integration tests, scripting data loaders in Python, and even &\#$'ing at, and in, Perl5 when we're feeling retro.

What will you bring to our team? Are you a UI wizard who wields jQuery and HTML5 for the forces of all that is good? Maybe you're a backend maestro who understands that no single tool, template, or design pattern is appropriate for every problem. Possibly even a systems integration miracle-worker who harnesses the power of Stripes or Guice Injection?

If you had started your career with Backstop last week, you would currently be busy:

  • Implementing a multi-terabyte ElasticSearch cluster, feeding it delicious hedge fund emails and documents via Clojure
  • Refactoring a portfolio liquidity DSL and its related service calls
  • As part of a smooth on-call program, writing Puppet manifests which automatically size heap relative to RAM and machine profile
  • Migrating the storage layer of a large Rails application to support a Repository pattern
  • Using feature flips to gradually make our platform support all kinds of alternative investment vehicles
  • Increasing JS unit test coverage provided by our Jasmine suite
  • Pairing on production code with another Backstopper, whether they be intern or senior developer
  • Writing automated RSpec tests to prove that your feature works the way you expected
  • Taking part in our regular retrospectives
  • Committing new features that will land on a hedge fund manager's browser tonight
  • Getting crushed in our Ping Pong tournaments (we have Foosball tournaments too, but those are less tournament and more massacre)

Apply   |   Backstop on Github