Full Stack Universe Engineer

About Roboflow

🖼️ Give your software the sense of sight.

Tech description:

Our goal is to build the world's best computer vision infrastructure so our users don't have to. This means we handle a lot of challenging complexities like seamlessly ingesting dozens of data formats, processing millions of images per day, and deploying auto-scaling machine learning infrastructure that can handle our customers' most demanding training and deployment needs.

Our core app sits atop Firebase with assistance from auto-scaling groups of Docker containers (for jobs like archiving datasets and training models). We also heavily lean on serverless infrastructure so we can gracefully deal with bursty traffic involved in manipulating datasets that can range anywhere from one hundred to one million images.

We also maintain [a library of Colab notebooks](https://models.roboflow.com) our customers can use to train common computer vision models, a [directory of public datasets](https://public.roboflow.com), and a [web of format specifications](https://roboflow.com/formats). We see building and supporting mini-projects like these that are helpful to the community at large as part of our role in democratizing computer vision.

Job description:

## Who We Are

Our mission is to make the world programmable. Sight is one of the key ways we understand the world, and soon this will be true for the software we use, too.

At Roboflow, we’re building the tools, community, and resources needed to make the world programmable with artificial intelligence. Roboflow simplifies building and using computer vision models. Today, over 250,000 developers, including those from half the Fortune 100, use Roboflow’s machine learning open source and hosted tools. That includes counting cells to accelerate cancer research, improving construction site safety, digitizing floor plans, preserving coral reef populations, guiding drone flight, and much more.

Our team is small relative to our impact, and we believe our users’ success is our success (not the inverse). A team member summarized: “Roboflow is a company full of giant brains and tiny egos.” We find software has a multiplier effect on all roles (not only product and engineering), so Roboflow employs developers across the company in design, sales, customer support, marketing, and beyond.

We’re supported by great customers and investors, having raised over $23 million from Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, Sam Altman, Lachy Groom, amongst other leading software investors.

## What We're Looking For

Primarily, you like to make great things with passionate colleagues. You are someone that likes to own outcomes, not only inputs. You’re motivated by having responsibility and accountability. You’re eager to “do the work,” big and small.

You’ve led or been on growth teams, grown products 5%+ week-over-week, and are motivated by finding ways of exponentially increasing usage of a product.
You’re motivated by the question, “How can I improve this?” and have a track record of doing so, even in ways adjacent to your role. Much of our current team is made up of former founders and thrive in the level of autonomy at Roboflow. Maybe you had a side hustle in high school or college.

Many Roboflowers have used our tools before joining. One of the best ways to stand out amongst other applicants is to write about something you have built with Roboflow or contribute to one of our open source projects.

## What You'll Do

This is a 1 of 1 role as a full stack developer focused on building Roboflow Universe, our open source dataset and model sharing hub, into the pre-eminent computer vision community. We’re looking for a generalist that wants to wear many hats; at times you’ll need to play the role of engineer (~50% of your time/bandwidth), growth (25%), product manager (20%), and community builder (5%). We’re looking for the founder of a future team that will blossom as they grow Universe’s scale and impact.

Universe is already the largest and fastest growing collection of open source computer vision datasets and APIs, hosting over 200 million user-labeled images, 200,000 open-source datasets, and 100,000 fine-tuned models for a long-tail of computer vision use-cases. It has thousands of daily users and we are now promoting it to a top-level initiative.

No two days will be the same in this role. Some examples of projects you could work on include:
Expanding our semantic search feature to allow searching by uploading an image
Adding achievements and gamification mechanics
Creating new pages for programmatic SEO
Implementing automated categorization and curation functionality
Integrating with new distribution channels
Tying new features of our core platform into Universe
Optimizing conversion funnels
Building APIs to expose additional functionality to users’ applications
Expanding from a read to a read/write paradigm
Showcasing foundation and multimodal models to users
Apart from the things you’ll build, you’ll also be doing things like:
Diving into metrics to gain insights into how things tick
Talking to users to better understand what they need
Working with our marketing team to do joint initiatives
Running and iterating on experiments/tests you come up with

📅 Within one week, you will…
Learn all about our product, company, customers, and vision.
Get ramped up in our codebase & become familiar with our architecture and backend.
Ship something substantial to an end user.
📅 Within one month, you will…
Onboard in person with our founders at our SF hub.
Build your first computer vision project with Roboflow (if you haven't already)
Be fully ramped up in the codebase & lead your first major initiative.
Take over responsibility for the Universe roadmap.
📅 Within three months, you will…
Deliver several important new tent-pole features on Roboflow Universe.
Be the primary owner of Universe’s metrics.
Participate in quarterly planning & chart a course for the next few months.
Develop a vision, strategy, and plan for the future of Roboflow Universe.
📅 Within six months, you will…
Execute against the goals, roadmap & plans.
Attend your first all company onsite.

## Who You Are

The ideal candidate for this role is highly technical, curious, and autonomous. As the founding member of the (future) Universe team you’ll need to chart your own course. This role would be perfect for a former technical founder.

To be successful, you’ll need to be a capable full-stack developer versed in web technologies (like JavaScript and HTML/CSS, Node.js, and Python). We use Firebase and ElasticSearch (amongst many other pieces of technology), but you can learn those on the job assuming you have a strong grounding in software development fundamentals.
We’d like for you to have experience growing a web-based product organically (bonus points for familiarity with user generated content, creating network effects, & community). Experience in developer tools and the computer vision / machine learning space is a plus.

## Who You'll Be Working With

Our team of ~50 attracts talent like executives that wanted to return to building, founders with a 100M+ exit, Roboflow users turned team members, open source contributors, a cyclist who biked across the United States, prolific high school hackers, a CTO from 100+ person engineering organization, amongst many exceptional others.

You will work directly with our CTO and alongside the rest of our 15-person product/engineering team, with top-notch designers, engineers, and ML experts.

## Where You'll Work

Roboflow is distributed across the US and Europe. We currently have Hubs in New York City and San Francisco (and plan to open more as we grow density in new cities). We provide opportunities (like team on-sites in different cities) and resources (like a $4000/yr travel stipend) to work in person with other team members as much as you'd like, while also supporting remote team members.

You can work from one of our Hubs (we offer a relocation bonus), work from home, work at co-working spaces, etc. We want you to work where you work best!

## When You'll Work

Roboflow primarily operates during the daytime hours in the US. There are some synchronous meetings you’ll be expected to attend each week, and this role will closely collaborate with our primarily US-based product/engineering team. Apart from that, we have a flexible schedule that allows you to work collaboratively with other team members and asynchronously when needed.

## What You'll Receive

To determine your salary, we use a number of market and data-driven salary sources. We review all salaries every six months to ensure we stay in line with the market.
💰 The target compensation for this role is $165,000 + equity.
📈 In addition to our cash compensation, we offer generous perks and benefits. Below are some of the highlights:
$4000/yr Travel Stipend to travel anywhere anytime to work alongside other Roboflowers
$350/mo Productivity stipend to spend on things that make your work environment more productive, like high-speed internet at home or a co-working space
Cover up to 100% of your health insurance costs for you and your partner or family
Equity in the company so we are all invested in the future of computer vision
Interview Process (~5 hours)
Below is the interview process you can expect for this role. We are all motivated to work with an exceptional team and don't currently have in-house recruiters. You will be speaking directly with our team about what it's like to work and thrive at Roboflow. We like to be decisive and work fast, so don't be surprised if all the below conversations happen over a day or two.

## Before the Interview:

We’ll review your application, LinkedIn, Github, etc.
The best way to stand out is to write about something you’ve built with Roboflow or contribute to one of our open source projects.
We may send you a technical screen if applicable.

Introduction Phase:

[30m] Meet with the CTO for introduction to assess overall mindset and skillset
This first interview is a time to get to know more about the role, allow us to get to know you better, and ensure it's a good fit for both parties to continue moving forward in the process
[90m] Technical Assessment
We will code something together
Team Interview Phase:

[30m x 2] Meet with other members of the team
[60m] Meet with hiring manager again
Use this time to review specifics about the job description
Begin working through your 30/60/90 projects
Ask questions!

Final Interview Stage:

[45m] Meet with Kate Wagner, Head of Operations, for a culture discussion
[60m] Meet with Joseph Nelson, CEO and Co-Founder
We check references and conduct a background check
Note: You are welcome to request additional conversations with anyone you would like to meet, and we will accommodate you as best we can.

## Not sure if this is you?

We want a diverse, global team with a broad range of experience and perspectives. If this job sounds great, but you’re not sure if you qualify, look into our Former Founders role. We carefully consider every application and will either move forward with you, find another team that might be a better fit, keep in touch for future opportunities, or thank you for your time.

## Learn More About Us

We are building a diverse Satellite team that is distributed across the globe. Roboflow is an equal opportunity workplace; we welcome people from all backgrounds, communities, and experiences.
We provide competitive compensation and stellar benefits to accelerate your personal and work life. Learn more about what it is like to work at Roboflow by reading these blog posts.
See our careers page for all open listings.