Are you our new tech person?

My friend Mitali has founded a startup. She's the businesswoman. I'm the product person and first employee. We need a tech person to join as the second employee. It's going to be an adventure so the only question is - do you want to join us?

The startup

The startup is focused on improving the way that DJs and electronic musicians stream live performances to their listeners and fans. It makes things better on both sides of the stream in ways that bring joy into the world. It's a fun and exciting thing to work on if you have even a passing interest in DJ culture.

Mitali had the idea during the pandemic. We prototyped concepts last spring, built a working demo in the summer, tested with real users in the autumn, and raised money over the winter. Now we're both quitting our jobs and doing this full time. Join us?

The job

We have £70,000 available for the tech person we hire. We know that you could get paid more for your skills in the open market but that's the way it is with startup salaries. To offset this imbalance you would get equity in the company. If the company does well in the future you'll do well too.

Also, you get the chance to work in a radically different workplace than the one you're in now. You’ll be the first tech person to work on an exciting new product idea. You’ll be one of a team of three people with complete autonomy over shared decisions. You’ll work from anywhere in the UK because our roles are remote.

There's one more thing to say. Mitali is a woman of colour. We’re committed to running a company that is inclusive, fair, and where the people that work here thrive and grow. This is NOT a tech bro startup. We especially welcome enquiries and applications from people from groups that are under-represented in the tech world. This is not lip service.

The role

As the first tech person you will be doing these things...

  • Working as part of a tiny team. It’s not a tech role where you get fed things to do and work in your own little box. The three of us will be working together every day to understand the problem and build something that proves value quickly.

  • Building the initial platform for the product. We need to connect a bunch of capabilities including streaming, authentication, analytics and video stuff in a way that lets us test and iterate ideas with real users. Quickly.

  • Taking early decisions about cloud-based infrastructure. We're still in the learning rather than scaling stage so these don't need to be forever decisions. Just good enough to carry us through our first year.

  • Making live streaming work. We need to live stream high quality audio and video so knowledge of technologies like OBS and RTMP would be useful. Or even better, experience of using products that mean we don’t have to build this.

  • Using existing technology wherever possible. We want to focus our limited dev time on the things that really matter. We need someone with the mindset of assembling existing technologies rather than making everything themselves.

  • Putting together a mobile-friendly front-end from designs. Our product needs to look good and behave smoothly for both DJs and fans on a wide variety of devices. You’ll need to be able to implement work that comes from a designer.

Obviously this is a wishlist. We know that people can learn on the job. So don't be put off if there are things on this list that you are unsure about, or haven't got much experience of. We’re just as interested in potential and excitement as experience.

The people

I've known Mitali for 20 years. She's open and honest and trusting and fair. She's excited and fun and inspired by good ideas. And yet she's practical and grounded and clear-minded about taking difficult decisions. I was wary of working with a friend but I've loved working with Mitali so much that I've quit a job that I love to do this.

I'm not going to say that I'm good to work with because that would be weird. Instead you can read about the way that I work and think because I've been writing about it for years on my blog. Or you can skim my Twitter feed to get a different sense of me. I come at product development from a design and research background, rather than a tech background, so I’m looking for a deep partnership with a tech person.

Get in touch!

That's my pitch! If you're interested you can ask me questions by email, Twitter or LinkedIn. And when you’re ready to apply just send a CV and cover letter to myddelton@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you about setting up an interview.