Software Engineer, Substack
Systems & Reliability
$170-230k
+ Equity
Platform for writers & podcasters
Open for applications
Platform for writers & podcasters
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$170-230k
+ Equity
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To give thinkers, writers, and creatives the opportunity to pursue their curiosity and make money at the same time.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of software engineering experience
- Can contribute across the full web stack, with a focus on building resilient, scalable backend systems
- Independent and autonomous. We’re too small to micromanage, and expect that every person at the company owns their work and can be a leader
- Hold yourself and others to a high standard when working on production systems
- Take pride in building elegant and delightful product experiences. Substack works best when it gets out of the way so writers can focus on writing and connecting with their readers
- Enjoy collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders while bringing your own unique experience and background to the team
- Believe in Substack’s mission to build a better business model for writing
What the job involves
- Systems Engineers at Substack are responsible for building the foundational infrastructure, tooling, and systems that enable product engineering and feature development
- We architect systems to support Substack’s fast-growing product ecosystem at web scale. S&R engineers work closely across product teams to build the next generation of infrastructure for Substack
- Build out Substack’s platforms to scale with growing traffic and a multitude of services to support writer and reader communities
- Partner with engineers and other stakeholders to design resilient and responsive systems
- Contribute to the whole product process in collaboration with designers, writers, support staff, and others. From product concept and research to implementation and deployment, we expect you to own your work and deliver high-quality solutions
- We primarily work with Node/Express, Postgres, and Redis, and our cloud infrastructure is hosted on AWS. It’s helpful if you know some of these technologies already, if not, we’ll be excited to help you learn
Our take
Substack provides an online platform for journalists and writers to manage subscription-based newsletters. Substack has attracted a range of writers and publishers who wish to connect with their audiences while being removed from social media and other ad-based models.
For an industry that has seen a steady decline in its fortunes since the rise of digital, Substack offers journalism an alternative to the advertising-driven clickbait-focused model that has dominated the last decade. Substack has amassed more than 35 million subscribers.
The subscription newsletter space is a competitive market, but Substack claims to provide greater freedom to writers than its competitors. Writers produce their newsletters on the site for free, charging an optional subscription fee (minimum of $5/month) of which Substack takes 10%. The company continues to seek out ways to diversify its offerings.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Few candidates hear
back within 2 weeks
62% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Nov 2024
$10m
ANGEL
Apr 2023
$7.8m
LATE VC
Total funding: $100.3m
Company benefits
- Remote work support - All employees receive a generous allowance to customize their home offices
- Comprehensive health care - Substack covers 100% of premiums for employees and their dependents, and fully funds HRA plans
- Parental leave - We want employees to be fully present for the new members of their family, so we offer generous parental leave
- Flexible vacation and paid time off - You’re the best person to decide when you need a day—or a week—off to travel or decompress. Our flexible vacation policy puts you in control
- Company holidays and Winter shutdown - In addition to flexible time off, we honor 12 paid holidays annually on average. And we close the office between Christmas Eve and New Year's day to recharge each year
- Phone & internet stipends - Many of our employees work from home or on the go. So we offer full time employees a monthly stipend to cover for phone and internet costs
Company values
- What you read matters - So we hire people who care deeply about reading and writing
- Subscriptions are better than ads - The business model matters – subscriptions put readers and writers in charge, and they create an incentive system that fosters great work
- We work in service of writers - Our teams build both for and with writers, providing Substack writers with the best terms, services, tools, and programs on offer
- We believe in the free press and in free speech - We do not believe these things can be decoupled. You can read more about our views on content moderation on our blog
Company HQ
The East Cut, San Francisco, CA
Articles
Leadership
Chris Best
(CEO)After several software internships, they co-founded Kik Interactive in 2009, serving as CTO until 2017. At this stage, they founded Substack, and have served as CEO ever since.
Hamish McKenzie
(Chief Writing Officer)Previously a journalist for several publications include The Independent and Time Out. Lead Writer for Tesla and Editorial Advisor to Kik Interactive.
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