Software Engineer
Inspire
In-office locations: Santa Monica, CA, USA and Philadelphia, PA, USA. Remote location(s): United States. As a certified B Corp, our mission is truly woven into the fabric of what we do. As you grow professionally, you are doing good for the planet by helping us to transform the way consumers access clean energy and accelerate the world’s transition to a net-zero carbon future. Our rapidly growing Engineering Team of mission-driven, climate enthusiasts is passionate, innovative and committed to a better future for the planet. We are looking for a Software Engineer to help us work in our core systems. If your focus is on the backend, you’ll be integrating with third party APIs, writing background processes, and creating JSON APIs for our internal and externally-facing applications. If your focus is on the frontend, you’ll build modern interfaces in both internal and consumer-facing applications. You will join a dynamic team and contribute alongside them, working in a collaborative and supportive environment. You’ll rely on your experience to make our technology platform better, furthering our mission of impacting the world positively through renewable energy. If you have a passion towards technology and interest in solving tough problems and care about our mission of spreading renewables across the country, let’s talk! How you’ll help:
- Be an integral contributor within a product-design-engineering “squad”. Write code, write tests, ship code to production multiple times per week.
- Own your features, from inception to completion. Participate in grooming sessions, code-reviews, QA, and post-deploy monitoring.
- Write and maintain comprehensive documentation of solutions.
- Advocate for best-practices within the team and mentor more junior engineers through pair-programming, code reviews, and coaching.
- Project Work
- Take on modifying existing functionality or integration taking on an important feature modification.
- Understand the problem, the requirements, scope it out and work with your team to deliver it.
- Learning our tech stack
- Contribute to multiple systems, making incremental improvements as you go.
- Must Have
- Experience that provides a foundational knowledge in software engineering concepts, with a focus on web technologies. Typical applicants have some experience developing professionally. If you are excited about the position and feel you’re a fit, please feel free to apply! We welcome applications from candidates with either a traditional or non-traditional education.
- Some examples of topics you’d feel comfortable speaking about:
- How you structure your code
- When you’ve built or consumed APIs
- What techniques you’ve used to test your code
- You should have experience with modern web applications. Our tech stack includes a monolith serving a JSON API backed by PostgreSQL and a React frontend
- Desire to continually learn. This could take many shapes but some examples include:
- Asking for feedback on pull requests,
- Pair programming with your peers and other more senior engineers
- Researching and understanding new trends and technology in web application development
- Experience or interest in the languages and frameworks (or equivalents) in our tech stack (if you don't have experience in all of them, that's ok!)
- Backend: Ruby/Rails, Sinatra/Padrino, RSpec
- Database: PostgreSQL, We use ActiveRecord and Ruby Sequel for ORMs
- Frontend: React, NextJS, Cypress
- Git and GitHub
- Experience deploying to Heroku, AWS, or similar
- Nice to Have
- Experience in a mission-driven team or renewable energy
- Medical/Dental/Vision coverage starts from day one
- Summer Fridays and Wellness days
- Mental Health Benefits (Headspace, Ginger)
- Company Paid Parental Leave
- Flexible Time Off
- 401(K) up to 4% Matching
- Employee Resource Groups
- Treks through GivePower and the opportunity to participate in service trip
- Training, development, and growth opportunities for all employees
- Work from Home
- Semi Annual Performance Bonuses
- Tuition Reimbursement
- B Corporation Discounts
- Open Office Floor Plan
- Dog-friendly workplace
- Fun Company Events
Retirement & Stock Options Benefits
- 401k with company contribution
Perks & Discounts
- Bring Your Own Device Reimbursement
- Casual Dress
- Snacks Provided
Health & Wellness
- Dental Insurance
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- FSA
- Health Insurance
- Life Insurance
- Long Term Disability
- Mental Health Benefits
- Short Term Disability
- Vision Insurance
Professional Development
- Employee Recognition Programs
- Tuition Reimbursement
Parental Benefits
- Family Medical Leave
- Nursing Room
- Parental Leave
Other
- Fully Remote Options
- Pet Friendly Office
PTO/Flexibility
- Paid Holidays
- Unlimited PTO
What makes Inspire an exciting place to work? We are constantly working towards something bigger than ourselves. Our mission is what inspires and connects us. But we're also raising awareness for customers that they have choices when it comes to choosing an energy source. Roughly 20% of your overall carbon emissions come from your home — which is huge. You can eliminate that 20% from your carbon footprint simply by deciding to go with Inspire. Through data, we empower customers by informing them of their choices and giving them an option to positively impact the environment. What’s unique about working on Inspire’s tech team? Between Philly and Santa Monica, we have about 60 people on our tech team. Being small, we’re able to bond and work together closely. Everyone across the entire team has a hand in creating something for customers. No one group comes up with ideas or roadmaps and presents them to the rest of the group; we collectively decide what we should be working on and how we can work towards bringing Inspire’s overall mission to life. We’ve created a very supportive and uplifting subculture. It’s not just about social events; it’s about asking, “How can we grow together? How can we work better together?” How has Inspire has worked to improve employee work/life balance during the pandemic? Due to the always-on nature of working from home during quarantine, we found that people had started working more hours and taking less PTO. Even when we told people to take time off, they still seemed to check in and contribute. We established “bonus days,” where every other Friday is off for the entire company. That way, no one is working, employees don’t feel that they are missing anything, and everyone can truly relax and recharge. What qualities make someone a promising job candidate at Inspire? Everyone at Inspire is driven by the mission to expand access to clean energy and work toward a zero-net carbon future. So we look for candidates who have that same passion for taking care of our earth. We’re a company of team players who collaborate closely, always ready to hop on Zoom to solve problems as a team. From a tech perspective, we want talented engineers of all levels, but we are also looking for people who also think deeply about the Inspire user and build features and solutions that work for them. People who are interested in their careers and helping grow the careers of those they work with share knowledge and level up their skill sets.
