A remote role at Ashby. You’re not afraid to tackle any part of a technology stack. You do what’s necessary to successfully deliver a feature, whether writing frontend or choosing…
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Our engineering culture strives to recreate the environments where we did our best work as ICs – where we had the ownership and agency to impact our users with creative and innovative software.
I started my career building software for artists in the Visual Effects industry. It was a formative experience for me as a software engineer because success relied on my ability to be a product manager and designer. I talked to artists to understand their needs. I came up with ideas. I did industry research, designed interfaces, and prototyped ideas. I watched artists use what I built and decided what to tackle in the next iteration. No daily stand-ups, no t-shirt sizing, no planning meetings.
I studied computer science to solve problems, not tickets, and this felt exactly like that. I not only felt creative and fulfilled but the agency and ownership we were given as engineers powered an incredible amount of innovation.
Innovation came differently (or not at all) at technology startups beyond the seed stage, often through an engineer’s force of will and ability to push back against culture (rather than any encouragement from it). Engineering was narrowed to implementation and delivery, partly due to the influence of other departments and partly due to the influx of "Agile" processes like sprint planning. In those companies, I felt like a JIRA jockey.
At Ashby, we’re building an environment that is optimistic about what engineers can own and achieve. An environment that embraces innovative engineers, and, frankly, often stays out of their way. As a Product Engineer, you’ll take ownership over a large portion of one of our products and own projects end-to-end (wearing hats traditionally worn by product and design). You’ll research competitors, write product specs, make wireframes, and more. To ground it with examples, product engineers at Ashby have:
What We’re BuildingAs engineers, we are used to tooling that makes us better at what we do. When we started Ashby, we saw the opposite with Talent Acquisition software. Recruiting teams were leveling up how they did their work, but instead of software meeting this new standard, it held them back.
Scheduling a final round is an excellent example. Recruiting teams wanted to schedule candidates faster, track interviewer preparation and quality, and do it with half the headcount. A recruiter needed to manually collect availability from the candidate, identify qualified interviewers, perform “Calendar Tetris” to find who is available to interview the candidate, schedule on the earliest date possible, and make any last-minute adjustments as availability changed. They must do this while considering the interview load on each individual and whether interviewers need to be trained and shadowing others. 🥵 TA software didn’t help.
As hiring managers, we know TA is a critical function, and as engineers, we know software can do better. So, we built and continue to build Ashby to give TA teams the highest standard of tooling. Software that’s intelligent and powerful. Software that provides insights into where they’re failing and automates or simplifies many of the tasks they’re underwater with. We want other functions and departments to be jealous of what TA teams can do with Ashby, and today they often are!
Why You Should or Shouldn’t ApplySoftware engineers come in many flavors, not all of which fit our model. Here are some things to help you decide if this fits you and what you’re looking for:
Engineering CultureOur engineering culture is motivated by Benji’s (my Co-founder and CEO) and my belief that a small, talented team, given the right environment, can build high-quality software fast (and work regular hours!). We do it through:
Minimal Process & Lots of OwnershipThe best engineers we’ve worked with delivered reliably magical outcomes. They took customer problems and relentlessly drove them to solutions that were not only successful but often brilliant and creative. While they did this with minimal oversight, stakeholders were never in the dark as to what was going on, and no setback was a surprise.
Traditional product-development processes aren’t meant for the best engineers. Their purpose is to create consistent outcomes regardless of the engineer’s skill. But, consistency comes at the expense of an engineer’s time and freedom—both ingredients necessary to generate those magical outcomes. As a result, process stifles the best engineers and doesn’t give others the opportunity to practice the behaviors that made the best engineers the “best.”
At Ashby, we want to build an environment that encourages every engineer to be their best. So, at Ashby, every Engineer runs their project. Product Managers (and Designers) build strategy, do customer research, and hand off problem briefs to Engineers. Engineers take on the rest: they research the problem, write product specs, build wireframes, and implement their solution end-to-end. We rely on engineers, not process, to push information outward to the relevant folks (e.g., Product Managers) and pull folks in to help (e.g., Designers, Infra). It’s a new level of ownership for many engineers, but we’d rather an engineer fail a bit and coach up their skills than use process as a crutch. Not everyone succeeds in our culture, but those who do thrive.
Collaboration is Natural & Communication is DeliberateOur engineering team consists of lifelong learners who are talented but also humble and kind (meet them here!). These attributes create an environment where collaboration happens naturally. We combine this with research, prototyping, and written proposals to see around corners and get feedback from the team across time zones. Focus time is something that we hold sacred, and, with thoughtful and deliberate communication, engineers are in here).
To drive it home, here's a recent calendar of an engineer who has been with us for over 4 years. ~34 hours of focus time, 2.5h of interviews, and 3.5 hours of meetings:…
Ashby
YC W19Other
66 open roles on Sydicom
At Ashby, we're improving the productivity of working professionals with intelligent and powerful software. We put a lot of effort into designing products that are approachable to beginners but mastered & extended by power users. In many ways, spreadsheets set the bar here. Our first products provide talent teams with clever automation, powerful analytics tools, and customizable workflows packaged in great UX. We have many paying customers who love us and use us every day like Opendoor, Airtable, Duolingo, and Notion. Notion's Head of Talent said Ashby is "probably the tool we are in the most and rely on the most, as a recruiting team." Our culture is motivated by Abhik's (my co-founder and Head of Engineering) and my belief that a small talented team, given the right environment, can build a great product and service fast (and work regular hours!). We hire exceptional, kind, thoughtful people and provide an environment where we can be happy, feel challenged, and do our best work. We are well funded and backed by great investors, including Y Combinator, Elad Gil, and Lachy Groom. We'll share more once we meet!
Source: Y Combinator
