Technical Advisor (0.5-2 hours per week)

Role description

We’d like to hire a technical advisor for 0.5-2 hours/week (remote) to help mentor our junior software engineer. We are hiring a junior software engineer for our startup because out tech stack is simpler given we are a tech-enabled service with an emphasis on “buying over building” software, and the software we do build will be internally-facing for a while. While we’re being very picky to get the most exceptional junior engineer who has at least some work experience, any junior engineer we do hire will by definition not have much experience with system design, which is where you can help!

The role will have 3 components:

• Gut-checking the engineer’s architecture decisions. We want to minimize the future negative impact of decisions the engineer makes in the early stages. This involves weekly check-ins with the junior engineer, and ad hoc check-ins as necessary, to review their decisions. The engineer and team will come prepared to the meeting to make efficient use of your time. 

• Evaluating the engineer’s performance. As non-technical founders, we need a way to ensure the engineer is productive and has what they need to succeed. 

• Getting into the codebase only in an emergency or when there are extremely sensitive pieces of code. Emergencies are highly unlikely given that our software is internally-facing and latency of deliverables are >24 hours, but anything could happen. 

Qualifications

• Has at least 5 years of software engineering experience

• Has built software from scratch in a scrappy way (ideally at a startup, and bonus-points for having been a technical founder)

• Has mentored junior software engineers before in some capacity, and really enjoys mentorship of engineers and non-technical founders

• Able to commit up to 4 hours per week (we expect that number to be closer to 30 min - 2 hours on average, with certain weeks being slower and occasional high intensity weeks requiring up to 4 hours). We imagine at the start of the engagement, this number will be on the higher end, and then quickly decrease over time. This number will also be influenced by the engineer we hire and their level of experience. The hours you’d work are generally quite flexible, and we can work around your schedule.

• Has a schedule in which they’d generally be able to meet on ~5 hours notice during working hours in an emergency. We don’t expect this to happen often and will do everything we can to minimize it.

Compensation

Equity, with option for hourly compensation based on your preferred structure. Amounts are TBD based on which engineer we hire (e.g. the more junior the engineer, the more we would need from a technical advisor).