Overview

Buqoo is a new type of social application, designed to enrich and enhance users' offline lives, bringing social networking into the 'real', offline world, while providing value-added services to small local businesses. We are a Chicago-based startup with a global team (Asia, Europe) preparing to launch our alpha.

Buqoo is a targeted application that addresses an under-served and very large addressable market. Unlike many other startups, Buqoo's business model is very scalable, predictable, robust, and does not rely upon advertising.

This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a startup that aims to change the playing field where social networking meets local search, earn a significant equity stake, and establish a senior role in the company as it grows.

Our development to date has relied heavily on expert marketing, design, and development contractors, and as we prepare to launch our alpha, we are looking for a lead to begin taking over the primary design, development, and maintenance functions from the contractors.

We are looking for a highly capable candidate who can start as a part-time intern (~10 hrs a week) and based upon performance and the completion of milestones, begin taking on more responsibility in return for tiered equity compensation. The candidate will be someone who has the potential to grow into the role of CTO.

The application is built in Ruby on Rails, so a candidate should have experience in that framework, or should be an extraordinary developer who wants to learn / gain experience in RoR.

In addition to having world-class engineering skills, a successful candidate will have a great design sense. Form and function are one and the same at Buqoo.

A CANDIDATE MUST

Be a brilliant, highly-creative problem-solver
Be a versatile, independent multi-tasker
Be comfortable with an unstructured environment, new ideas, and change
Be an effective communicator
Be an extremely quick learner, regardless of the domain
Have a firm grasp of the web market / economics
Be high-energy and motivated
Be hungry to help develop a world-class web business
Always be looking for new / better ways of doing things
Not be afraid to speak their mind
Have a good sense of humor
Be fun

REQUIRED SKILLS / EXPERIENCE

At least two years of web application development experience in MVC environments
At least one year of experience in UI design working with HTML and CSS
Appreciation for visual standards, usability, presenting a consistent brand experience
Hands-on experience with Apache/Lighttpd/Nginx + mongrel_cluster environment
Solid working knowledge in unix/linux
Experience using popular JS frameworks
Comfortable writing rspec tests
Experience using FTP, command line, remote servers, etc.
Experience / familiarity with Agile development

ADDITIONAL SKILLS / EXPERIENCE

Candidates with the following experience will receive special consideration:
Ruby on Rails experience
Experience working with VC-funded startups
TDD/BDD experience
Experience building social network platforms

To apply, please send a resume, cover letter, and portfolio links / examples to jobs@buqoo.com

Feel free to contact us with any questions about the company and / or position.

Compensation

Eligible for tiered equity grants after an initial trial period and based upon performance / completion of milestones