Job Description 

Vittana is looking for a scrappy Rails developer to join our team and help build www.vittana.org into the #1 marketplace for global education. Vittana is already a recognized leader in Seattle (Seattle 2.0: “Best Non-Profit”, Fast Company: “5 Social Capitalists Who’ll Change the World”, New York Times: “next new thing”) but we have our sights set on something even bigger: 100,000 students by 2013 and 1,000,000 students by 2015.

We’re putting together a small, top-caliber engineering team and we’d like you to be part of it. You’ll work closely with the team to launch big new features (24-hour lending challenge, anyone?), continuously improve our website product (AARRR!), and help develop back-end systems to help us scale. Your work will be a big part of helping us achieve our mission, so you need to not only be a wickedly smart developer, but you also need to care about changing the world. We’re hard-headed idealists here, and we’re looking for a few more to join our team.  

This is a contract role, starting at ~20 hr/week. Compensation competitive with market rates. For the right skill set, this could be (or become) a full time role. 

Responsibilities

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  Launch new website features and continuously improve web U/X (65%)

  
  
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    Implement pages using HTML/CSS + JS from design PSDs + interaction flows for new pages and/or major new functionality

    
    
  
  
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     Independently iterate and continuously improve customer U/X based on Vittana-specific user metrics

    
    
  
  
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    Develop and launch new functionality using Ruby on Rails, jQuery,

    
    
  
  


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  Assist development of back-end flows to enable scalable processes (25%)

  
  
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    Develop internal web tools (e.g. customer service & student supply chains) to help operations team scale from 1,000 to 100,000 students

    
    
  
  


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  Assist in maintenance of existing systems (10%)
  
  

  
  

More About Vittana & Your Role:  

We’ve been moving at light-speed for the last few years and it’s clear that our cause resonates with people. As we enter the next stage of our mission, we need to tap into even more inspiration and translate that into even more impact. Your job is simple: build the best education marketplace on the planet. We're looking for someone who wakes up every morning thinking, "How do I put more students in college today?"

We’re a non-profit and still a young organization but are backed by some of the world’s top VCs and entrepreneurs, and have been rocketing forward for the past few years:

• Growth: 10x annual portfolio growth for last 3 years: 0 -> $50K -> $500K; on track for $3-5M to 5,000 students in 2011


•  Impact: 291% income change, e.g. $3/day -> $8/day after a Vittana loan in Vietnam


•  Viability: 99% repayment by ~1,000 students


•  Press: “Best Non-Profit” (Seattle 2.0), “5 Social Capitalists Who’ll Change the World (Fast Company), “hotbed of innovation” (Economist), “next new thing” (New York Times), “superbien” (LA Times), etc.


•  Supporters: Mitch Kapor, Tim O'Reilly, Motwani Circle, Peery Foundation, early executives from Amazon, Google and Microsoft


•  Team: key executives, staff and board members from Amazon (CEO led tech for $1B team at Amazon), Unitus (15-year industry veteran COO), and Kiva

Skills

Required:

• Ruby on Rails, MySQL, HTML/CSS + JS


• Passion for building amazing products and rock-star U/X


• Ability to work in agile + iterative development environments

Strongly Desired:

• B.S. or B.A. in Computer Science, HCI or related discipline; however, we’re more impressed by passion than degrees, GPAs or years of experience.


• Work experience at a previous startup or personal side projects

How to Apply

We want to know how you think. Tell us three things you’d love to change, add, remove or overhaul completely about Vittana’s current website: www.vittana.org.

Email your three suggestions,  your resume and a few sentences introducing yourself to jobs@vittana.org with “Rails Developer // [your name]” in the subject line.

More About Our Mission

In most developing countries, student loans just don't exist. Together, as a community of people who believe in the power of education, we are enabling young people around the world to finish their education and achieve their dreams.

Vittana works with microfinance organizations in developing countries to build student micro-loan programs, often providing the first and only real access to financial aid to would-be students. Students from those programs appear on our website and, because of the $25 and $50 loans that people like you and I make, are able to get the money they need to finish their education.

When you make a loan through Vittana, 100% of your funds go to the student. Using your loan, the student finishes college (or vocational school or technical school) and gets her degree. When the student repays, Vittana repays you the full amount of your loan — if you lent $25, you are repaid $25.