About Athens Research

Our mission is to create open-source software to augment intelligence and knowledge management for individuals, teams, and enterprises in the short-term, and global communities in the long-term.

Our vision is to create a second brain and second internet using knowledge graphs and bidirectional links. A second brain would be the central "operating system" for yourself or your collaborators. A second internet would be a new, globally connected system of information and communication flows, like the Internet but rewired with bidirectional links and data. Ideally, these global knowledge graphs would be built on open and decentralized protocols so that opportunity and access can remain democratized.

About the role

Skills: Clojure

Why

Our mission is to create open-source software to augment intelligence and knowledge management for individuals, teams, and enterprises in the short-term, and global communities in the long-term.

Our vision is to create a second brain and second internet using knowledge graphs and bidirectional links. A second brain would be the central "operating system" for yourself or your collaborators. A second internet would be a new, globally connected system of information and communication flows, like the Internet but rewired with bidirectional links and data. Ideally, these global knowledge graphs would be built on open and decentralized protocols so that opportunity and access can remain democratized.

What

We are building a new platform, the knowledge graph, with a new primitive, the bidirectional link. The first killer use cases for knowledge graphs and bidirectional links are notetaking, research, and documentation.

In the short-term, notetaking naturally moves into task and project management, then calendar and time management, and then communications more broadly.

How / Where

Being in an open-source community that values collaboration and learning, you will need to be friendly and communicative. 99% of our work and communication happens in open channels — "building in public."

This is more than a Monday through Friday 9-to-5. Every Sunday we have a community call on Discord, because that is when many our contributors and users have free time. This is typically a casual hangout. If it feels like "work," something is wrong!

Because we have contributors from all over the world, we are distributed and remote-first. Expect to work asynchronously and be mindful of collaborators' timezones. That said, we encourage synchronous voice+video via Discord and async voice+video with Loom to maintain the human connection.

Who

We are an early stage startup funded by Y Combinator, X, Y, and Z.

You will be joining as the 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th hire. Being an early startup hire, you will have to be:

scrappy, hungry, and resourceful — an underdog
hardworking, ambitious, and a very fast learner
a long-term optimizer, with a short-term bias toward action and execution

Ideally, you have experience with various text editors and IDEs, productivity and knowledge tools, and tools for thought.

Do you use both Vim and Emacs?
Do you constantly tinker with tools, trendy/new or esoteric/old?
- Kitemaker, Miro, Whimsical, Craft, Supernotes, nvALT, Leo Editor, VoodooPad, Workflowy, Dynalist, Obsidian, Dendron, Foam, org-mode, Vimflowy, DevonThink, The Archive, Zettlr, Zim, Zenkit, Nimbus Notes, WorldBrain, Hypothes.is, Pocket, Instapaper, Airr, Pinboard, Muse, Gingko, TiddlyWiki, Typora, iA Writer
Perhaps you're inspired by:
- OGs like Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, Ted Nelson, Tim Berners-Lee, and Stewart Brand
- Designers like Bret Victor, Andy Matuschak, and Michael Nielsen
- Productivity gurus like Tiago Forte, Ali Abdal, and Thomas Frank

You will working directly with the founder of Athens, Jeff Tang (Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn).

Jeff has a unique combination of skills that makes him a pleasure to work with. The combination of being a kind and intelligent person with excellent organization and communication skills have allowed him to build up a very smart and welcoming community. By creating and launching Athens in a very short time span, he has shown to be both a great developer as well as being very business savvy. You won't regret working with him!

— Jeroen, first engineering contributor, CTO of AdGoji

When / Hiring and Interview Process

We are hiring now. You should start contributing today, or at least start engaging with the community.

We do not have a conventional hiring process. Apologies if you've spent hundreds of hours on LeetCode or your portfolio. Whether you want to join as an engineer, designer, or community developer, making contributions is the hiring and interview process. This is not a proxy for the job. This is the job.

The more collaboration done through contributions, the more we understand each other's technical and communication abilities and styles. There should be little to no friction or onboarding going from contributor to part-time to full-time.

Message @Jeff Tang that you are contributing with the expectation of working at Athens. You will be compensated via Gitcoin Bounties for the contributions you make. We plan to invest heavily in Bounties, therefore it's possible that you get paid more for Bounties per hour than a normal part-time or full-time job. See Bounty Experiment 3/07/21 - 3/28/21 for more background.

Benefits

Salary and equity is primarily based on your experience level and location, inspired by GitLab's compensation model: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/compensation/#factoring-the-factors
You will be able to work anywhere in the world
You will be able to work with great people
You will get to work on the most exciting open-source Clojure project and startup :)

Engineer

Role

Design, build, and maintain our core product, a ClojureScript + DataScript knowledge graph
Polishing functionality and components
See our GitHub Projects, Issues, and Discussions, and use Athens to get a feel for what needs to be improved
Talking to users and contributors on Discord and GitHub; attending community call on Sundays

Plus

Experience in open-source
Experience with ClojureScript, React, Electron, CSS
Experience with Lisp or Functional Languages

Hiring Process

Clojure experience IS NOT a requirement. If you don't have Clojure experience, begin learning Clojure using the resources in our education repo: https://github.com/athensresearch/ClojureFam
Get paid through our Gitcoin bounties. The lowest priced ones are "good first issues." Submit your contributions for review. Document and communicate your thought process. Integrate feedback. This is the job! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/11pz9719i2_u2kFj438mZhrZT_Uez2ne8cRCthVK1Qo4/edit#gid=0
Prioritizing full-time to begin with, but will consider part-time based if that's the best way to work with a candidate. However, it seems like doing progressively more bounties seems like the best way to transition from contributor to part-time to full-time. A 3-month work trial can also be considered if it makes sense for the candidate.
Include everything mentioned above at: https://www.notion.so/athensresearch/Athens-is-Hiring-Job-Descriptions-7f52ac86e1e1406f93624503e226dfe6#836380de76a5446ca12f972ee14c3c33

Technology

Clojure
ClojureScript
Datomic
DataScript
AWS

Athens Research remote jobs

Founding Engineer

Clojure Engineer