Senior Software Engineer, Product at Happyscribe.com

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Hello ✨

We're Happy Scribe, a 100% bootstrapped and profitable startup, based in Barcelona.

We are on a mission to break language barriers globally and bring audiovisual content to all.

We are building the #1 Audiovisual Platform by combining state-of-the-art AI with trusted language experts to produce high-quality transcriptions, subtitles, and closed captions at speed.

We're 39 people at the moment, and we're building the team thoughtfully and with a lot of care. How would you like to join us on this journey?

This is a hybrid role, based in Barcelona. Happy Scribe is office-first, remote-friendly. In other words, we aim to spend most of our time collaborating in person.

What you will do… 

• Build product features from start to finish. You'll wear many hats during the creation process while you conceive, design, implement, ship and maintain them — think features to improve the editing experience.

• Build the scalable infrastructure needed for the transcription of the future — like identifying coupling and extracting concerns into small and scalable services.

• Improve the performance, reliability, and efficiency of our systems — for example finding bottlenecks in the transcription pipeline and optimizing them to reduce overall turnaround time.

• Design and implement processes and internal tools with simplicity and productivity in mind — such as a tool to sync valuable user feedback with the internal database.

What you will bring…

• You have a solid background as a Software Engineer and enjoy working in a Full Stack role, focusing approximately 70% on backend and 30% on frontend tasks.

• You're product focused. You want to listen to customers, and build the product that will solve their needs.

• You care about the business implications of anything you build. You don't go after the shiny stuff, but see it as a balance of craft, speed, and the bottom line.

• You love steep learning curves, and are not afraid to learn about subjects that are outside of the comfort zone. For example, you can learn most technologies as you go. You're pragmatic about them, it's about the tools and tradeoffs, not ideologies.

• You care about information security and design things with security in mind.

• You are excited about our engineering principles. Or at least curious about them, if they seem very different from what you've been doing in the past.

• You’re a great mentor, able to share your knowledge and upskill other team members. Bonus points if you have experience helping a junior engineer stretch their skills and learn fast.

• We have a language-agnostic approach to code and believe the best engineers can code in any language. Our stack is in Ruby on Rails and React, but it's not a requirement that you know how to work with them. We like to work with people who are more interested in the problem they're solving than in the language they're using to solve it. We use Heroku for infrastructure and AWS as a cloud.

Company Culture

✨ Have an impact on millions of people — Change how users and language professionals make transcriptions, translations and subtitles.

👫 Work with a small team of bright people — When we talk with most people, they have a hard time understanding how we got so far with so few people. We're close in ARR to a typical Series B company, but our ARR per employee is 10x the industry average.

🤝 A company culture built on trust, autonomy, and independence

🛫 Infinite runway, no investment pressure. We are 100% bootstrapped and profitable. Every penny spent comes from happy customers who are paying for a product they value. Many tech companies are laying off staff because they grew too fast and need funding to survive. We prioritised profitability and sustainable growth, and are not impacted by funding shortage.

🍽️ In-Person culture — We believe nothing beats the magic of great people working together in person, in and outside of working hours. We work together, and spend time together: expect laughter-filled conversations over shared meals. The rule of thumb is 80/20 (80% in the office and 20% where you want); you have flexibility to work from abroad or at home when needed.

✊ We make it work — Have kids? Live far away? Do you have a non-normative life setup? The thing we care the most about is the team. Once we know we want to work with you, we make it work and we can flex the 80/20 rule.

⏱️ Flexible working hours — Work on the schedule that makes you the most happy and productive. Here's more info.

🏰 Beautiful office in Gràcia — One of the best areas in Barcelona. Our offices are much more than just a place to work. We like to see them alive 24/7, filled with friends and creative activities. Want to organise a community event, a breakfast with other designers, developers, etc.? The place is yours. Take a sneak peek here.

✈️ Team Retreats — So far we've been to Paris, Mallorca, the Pyrenees, Aran Islands, Dublin, and Sweden, where we had a small island to ourselves!

🌏 International, English-only speaking environment — We're building an international team and want to create an inclusive environment where anyone can join any conversation at any time, even if it’s just kitchen talk. That's why you'll find Italian, French or Catalan people talking in English to each other.

What we offer...

💰 Competitive salary — our salaries are in the top percentiles of the Barcelona startup scene.

📈 Equity — By joining the company when the team is so small, you’re helping us set the foundations of our future success. We're asking you to come on an adventure, so if we find a treasure, we want you to get a piece.

🏖️ 30 days per year vacation time — To relax and recharge your batteries whenever you need to.

🚚 Visa sponsorship and Relocation help — We want to work with the best people, regardless of where they're from. We'll help with your relocation costs and getting set up in Barcelona and will sponsor your visa if needed.

💻 The hardware that you need to be most productive.

📚 1 book/mo + e-learning platforms, conferences or courses of your choice — We truly want you to learn.

🍏 Private Health Insurance — We have partnered with Alan to best take care of our team both in Barcelona and while they’re on the road, covering half of the full price of the medical coverage.

💳 Monthly savings — Use part of your gross salary for meals, public transport, or nursery services through Cobee and enjoy income tax savings on everyday expenses.

Interview Process

We see this as a two way process and value the time you invest in considering working with us. We are committed to replying to everyone who applies, giving feedback to everyone we interview, being respectful of your time and giving you all the information you need to be able to make a decision.

• Step 1 - TA Screening Call - 20-35 minute video call with our talent team to dive deeper into your skillset.

• Step 2 - First Tech Interview. 60 minutes with a Senior Engineer from our team; we will focus on several key areas that are crucial for the Senior Software Engineer position.

• Step 3 - Second Tech Interview. 60-90 minutes. Live coding interview with 2 of our engineers, focused on a real world problem you might actually need to solve at Happy Scribe. No take home exercises or preparation required.

• Step 4 - Values and Meet The Team. 60 minutes with a co-founder and another team member followed by another 45 minutes to meet some of the amazing people you’d be working with to help you know if you want to join our team.

🕊️ Happy Scribe is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all people and all walks of life.

We believe a diverse team will be key to our success and we strongly encourage applications from under-represented groups in tech and marginalised groups in general: women, people of colour, LGBTQIA+, parents, career changers, refugees, people with disabilities… we want to hear from you!