Overview

At YNAB, we build the world’s best budgeting software. But we’re even prouder of teaching people how to align their money and their priorities, and in turn changing their lives.

We have big plans for our iOS and Android apps. In the Summer of 2017 we brought most of the functionality of the web app to our mobile apps, and now we’re looking to take them even further.

If you’re the one we’re looking for, you have extensive experience with iOS or Android and are excited to help us with *both* platforms. Heck, you’re also excited about getting to work with the TypeScript and SQL we use in our shared library. This isn’t your first rodeo. You’ve got 5 or more years of experience, and can point to multiple applications you have helped ship.

That’s a super-brief intro of what you’ll be working on. But first, you need to know if you’ll even like working with us. We think you will.

A Bit About Us

We build the best budgeting software around, YNAB or “You Need a Budget” if you have a lot of extra time on your hands. For more than a decade, people have been buying YNAB and then telling their friends what a difference it has made in their lives. (Google us, and you’ll see what we mean.) We love building something that has a huge positive impact on people’s lives.

We’re profitable, bootstrapped, and growing. YNAB started in 2004 and we haven’t taken any outside funding—we’re in it for the long haul.

We have one overarching requirement when it comes to joining our team: our Cultural Manifestohas to really click with you. If you’re nodding emphatically while reading it, you’ll probably fit right in!

First, let’s talk about life at YNAB and then we’ll go into detail about what we’re looking for.

Who you’d be working with:

Our developer team is 12 people strong, but we all work pretty closely. For that matter, we also work in cross-functional teams frequently so you’ll get to work with people in all different roles in the company. As a small sampling though, here are a few that you’ll definitely rub digital shoulders with:

Taylor, our CTO, was our digital nomad for a couple of years while he travelled…pretty much everywhere. He’s now slowing down a bit and lives in Austin Texas, where he’s learning to flex his handyman muscles while renovating their home. He’s exceptionally good at escape room gamesand his super skill is explaining the rules of a board game in the most concise and understandable way you’ve ever heard. He also wins a lot of those board games.

Sebastian, our mobile lead developer, works mostly on the iOS side of things here at YNAB. When he’s not busy at YNAB he’s either out walking the dogs, pretending to be a firefighter, feeding the cats or playing with his new server rack in the barn. He lives in rural Switzerland which might explain the barn – and by rural we mean it’d take you an hour to get to Zurich.

Graham, our Android tech lead, is on a mission to convert everything to RxJava and Kotlin, and is constantly dabbling with various architecture patterns and solutions for cross-platform code-sharing. He lives in Scotland, where he hopes to one day be a decent enough guitarist to play a tune and actually have someone recognize it.

He’s an aviation geek who obsessively binge-watches entire seasons of Air Crash Investigations, just in case it might be useful someday.

How You’ll Work at YNAB

We work really hard to make working at YNAB an amazing experience. We have a team full of truly exceptional people—the kind you’ll be excited to work with. Here’s how we operate:

Live Where You Want

We’re a distributed team, so you can live and work wherever you want. Proximity doesn’t influence productivity. Just make sure you have a reliable internet connection.

No Crazy Hours

We rarely work more than 40 hours per week. There have been a few occasions where things got a little crazy and people had to log some extra hours. But then they took some extra time off, so it all balances out. We work hard and smart but we’re in this for the long haul, no need to go crazy on the hours.

Take Vacation (Seriously)

We want you to take vacation. In fact, we have a minimum vacation policy of three weeks per year (plus two extra weeks for Christmas break). It’s important to get out and do something. We’ll look forward to seeing pictures of your vacation in our internal chat room, creatively named #office_wall.

The YNAB Retreat

We get the teams together once a year to catch up on spreadsheets and powerpoints in a Best Western conference room. Just kidding. So far, we’ve done Costa Rica, a gigantic cabin in the mountains, and a beach house in the Outer Banks. This year is a ranch in Montana. We do really fun things, but the highlight is always just hanging out together and having a blast.

Up Your Game

We’re serious about helping you improve your craft. We budget for it (hey-o!).. Think conferences, Lynda subscriptions, books, dedicated time away from work to learn something new… it’s really up to you and your manager. But we love to see our people growing.

If You’re International…

You’ll be set up as a contractor. Employee or contractor, it’s all the same to us. You’re part of the team. As for time zones, we’re flexible as long as a decent chunk of your time overlaps with North American time zones.

If You’re Stateside…

You’ll be a W2 employee with fantastic health, dental, and vision insurance, where we cover 100% of the premium for you and your family. (No need to check your vision, you read that right, 100%. Although if you did need to check your vision, no big deal, we’ve got you covered!)

We also have Traditional and Roth 401k options. YNAB contributes three percent whether you choose to throw any money in there or not. It vests immediately. (Are you a personal finance junkie like Jesse? He set up YNAB’s 401k to have the lowest fee structure possible, where all plan costs are paid by YNAB, not your retirement nest egg. The investment funds available are fantastic, passively-managed, ultra low-cost index funds. You’re not a PF junkie? Then trust us, it’s great.)

Other Tidbits

  • Once you start, we DEMAND (in a friendly, ALL CAPS IS YELLING way) that you fill out your “Bucket List” spreadsheet with 50 items. (That’s harder than it sounds!)
  • The bucket list helps in deciding what we should give you for your birthday and Christmas: No gift cards here. We tried that. Super boring.
  • We have a bonus plan based on profitability. You’ll be in on that from day one. YNAB wins, you win. That kind of thing.
  • We’re all adults. There’s no need to punch a clock, or ask for permission to take off early one afternoon to go see the doctor (health insurance premium 100% covered!). We look at what you’re accomplishing, not how long you sit (have you tried standing?) in front of a computer.
  • We want you firing on all cylinders so we’ll set you up with a shiny new computer and replace it every three years.
  • Did I mention we make a huge, positive difference in people’s lives? We have a Slack channel where we share success stories from our customers daily. It’s amazing. Don’t underestimate this one!

If this sounds like your ideal environment, read on because now I want to talk about you. You will play a big part in helping YNAB delight users and give them control of their money.  You will change lives.

Now, back to you, our new Mobile Developer…

You’re a mobile developer with over 5 years of experience. At least two of those have been spent working with either iOS or Android, or both. (If you have experience with only one, you’re excited to work with the other. We love both platforms for different reasons, and want you to as well.)  You know how to write easy-to-maintain software while still keeping an eye on the roadmap.

You’ll help us implement new features and maintain existing apps on both iOS and Android. We have native implementations for each platform but use a shared library based on TypeScript for things that, well, need to be shared across platforms. For performance and maintainability reasons there is plenty of SQL code as well. You don’t have to be an expert on TypeScript or SQL, but being curious about how things work on that layer will definitely help. Our baselines are Lollipop on Android and iOS 9 on iOS. You’ll get to work with things like Kotlin and RxJava on Android. On iOS you’ll work with Objective-C and Swift on a universal app and an Apple watch app.

You’re the one we’re looking for if you:

  • Are an excellent developer and can adapt to new languages quickly.
  • Write code that is easy for other programmers to understand and use.
  • Have excellent debugging skills. You know how to find problems, and how to architect apps so that problems are discoverable in the first place.
  • Are self-motivated and thrive with directions like:
    • “This part of the program is too slow, and these are the places that might be good to start looking.”
    • “This component needs to be re-architected to allow for X. How do you think we should do it?”
    • “Our code needs to call into a Javascript library, but that Javascript library is crashing because it can’t find the setTimeout method. Can you investigate?”
  • Are excited to work across multiple platforms with different technologies.
  • Have experience with:
    • Kotlin / Java
    • Or
    • Swift / Objective-C
  • Have shipped or helped ship at least one significant app for either iOS or Android.
  • Are a senior developer who can point to strong experience where you’ve exemplified the bullet points above.

Bonus Point:

  • You already use and love YNAB.

Salary will be between $90k and $125k, depending on experience.

And, since our job descriptions are already so long, what’s another sentence or two…

YNAB is an equal opportunity employer. We believe diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences to be critical to our success and are passionate about creating a welcoming, supportive, and collaborative environment for all employees. All are encouraged to apply as we continue to grow a smart, hard-working, and diverse team who love working together to build something that matters.

How to Apply

  • Apply below by 11:59PM on March 25th, 2018. Firm. It’s a real deadline.
  • Attach a pdf of your cover letter. In your cover letter:
    • Introduce yourself and explain why this position is of interest to you, and why you would be a great fit.
    • Please include links to apps you’ve built or anything else that makes you look good, and describe your role in building those apps. (If they’re internal, you can skip the link part.)
    • Includes answers to the following questions:
      • What are your two strongest programming languages? Is there another language that you’re curious to learn next?
      • If you were interviewing a prospective candidate for this position, what would be a good interview question to ask to find out if a candidate really knew their stuff?
      • Complete this short coding test (https://www.interviewzen.com/apply/cxjc9r) and include a link to your results in your cover letter. It shouldn’t take more than 5 or 10 minutes.
  • If you have a prepared resume, attach it in PDF form. If you don’t have a resume because you aren’t even sure you’re looking to change jobs, that’s fine! An informal list of your work and education history are all we’re looking for.

We look forward to hearing from you!

P.S.  If you’re not interested in or available for this position, but know someone who is, we would really appreciate it if you passed this along!