Overview
Axios, a fast-growing media company, is looking for a Systems Architect to join our existing backend team to help build and maintain new platforms. These systems allow us to define our own future on our own technology, and to grow as a fast-moving company that pushes the bounds of news and information.
Following in the steps of our company’s motto — Smart Brevity — we’re looking for someone to join our team and make great technical decisions, build dynamic software and keep our servers secure and stable.
Here’s what we’re looking for in candidates:
YOU CAN BUILD QUICKLY WHILE KEEPING SCALE AND SECURITY IN MIND
You know the best way to build software is to get it right from the beginning, with scalability, security, resilience, and flexibility in mind throughout. You have experience designing, testing, and building scalable code and server architectures and can quickly troubleshoot the most challenging outage scenario, in part because of your great documentation.
YOU LIKE WRITING TESTS
You know one can’t write scalable, secure code without writing tests. You like writing them first. You like writing a new test when you discover a flaw in the system. And you know what to test. You’ll be joining a team that already tries to test as much as it can, and we’d like you to help us do it even better.
YOU HAVE A BOX FULL OF TOOLS
You’ve been around a few challenging projects before, and have built up a set of skills along the way. You’ll be gluing together systems that, in some cases, don’t have clean and simple APIs available, so you’ve got a few different tricks up your sleeves to make everything work and to manage everything simply. These might include, but not be limited to Python, bash/sh, Lua, cron, Docker, Kubernetes, supervisors, and fabric. You should have experience deploying large production-ready projects to AWS, and be familiar with most of its offerings.
YOU ARE A PATIENT TEACHER
You’ll be the driving force behind creating and documenting our practices for code management, deployment, and distribution, and will need to influence a team of eager but very busy developers. We won’t all do it exactly right every time, so you’ll need to be kind enough to guide us while being firm about what needs improvement.
YOU WORK WELL WITH OTHERS
You know that building anything with the help of multiple teams requires empathy. You’d much rather work with folks willing to put in the time and energy to talk things through than steamroll your preferred ideas or push an agenda. You like to occasionally pair program with hard problems, enjoy strong-willed discussions about architectural decisions, and like making plans that set you up for success.
YOU ARE A FAST LEARNER
You have a core set of technical skills, have shown you can use them in professional settings, and probably have a few favorite languages, frameworks, and methods. You also are totally willing to jump in, feet first, to evaluate and deploy new tools with which you’re unfamiliar. You’re eager to learn, a quick study, and can turn what you learned into clear documentation for others to build on.
YOU LIKE OPTIMIZING CODE
You’re a fan of writing code that can scale because it’s written to be as fast as possible. You know how to dive into the server architecture and make everything run as smoothly as possible, as cheaply as possible. While we aren’t against spending money, we want to spend it wisely, and you like saving money by making better technical decisions.
Do you fit some of these categories? Do you just think the job would be up your alley? Do you want to build something cool and have fun? Then please apply. Let us decide if you’re the right candidate—if you have an ounce of desire to apply, please do!
ABOUT AXIOS
Axios is an early-stage news startup built around a simple proposition: Deliver the cleanest, smartest, most efficient and trustworthy experience for readers and advertisers alike. We have a leadership team of successful industry veterans with deep experience turning big ideas into reality. We’re looking for a Systems Architect to join our small team to deploy and maintain the services that support all we’ll do, including our own content management system.
We are a small, flexible technology team who are building a whole new way of creating and distributing news. We’re composed of veterans from marquee media companies and are excited to build a new one from the ground up. This opportunity is a unique one to have responsibility and oversight in a quickly-growing group.
We are a stable company. We have closed a large series A from top-flight VCs and a B-round, and have an A-list leadership team in place. We are serious about success and are looking for the best talent to join us on this journey.