Looka Is Hiring Developers
For the first time in over 2 years, Looka is hiring full time software developers. We’re at a point where the business is solid, we’re comfortable working remotely, and our road map is full of interesting projects. It wasn’t easy to get here though. Below I’ll give you some context on where we’re coming from, how we got to be in a solid position, and what it would be like working for us.
Background
In October 2019 we laid off 32 employees, reducing Looka’s team from 42 employees to 10. We did that because we lost most of our revenue when we rebranded from Logojoy to Looka, and could no longer afford a team of 42. In fact, even after the layoffs we still were not profitable with only 10 employees.
However, with 10 employees we were confident we could turn things around. Rallying around that goal, we put our heads down and got to work building Looka back up.
For the next 6 months we worked on the business relentlessly. We wanted to reach profitability by April. To do that we made serious changes. We changed how we shipped features. We used to take our time shipping new features. Now we were shipping multiple features a week. We changed how we viewed quality. Bugs had been the constant bane of our Customer Success (CS) team, so we started converting the most bug prone part of the codebase to TypeScript. We changed how we tested features. We used to rigorously A/B test even minor features. Now we were using a modified multi-armed bandit approach to quickly find features that had large positive impacts.
It didn’t take long for this shipping first approach to pay off. Within 2 months we’d increased revenue per user more than 20%. The CS team gleefully reported that they could focus on helping customers because they were no longer apologizing for bugs. Our ads started making money for the first time in years. Our organic rankings were still in the dumps, but that was okay because we were so lean. At a team Valentine’s Day lunch, the Marketing and CS teams told me that things were “actually going really well” with visible surprise in their faces. Right on schedule, in April 2020, we hit profitability. Big thanks to Andre, Annisha, Christine, Kiah, Matthew, and Rach for helping us get there!
With the business back in the black, we set ourselves a new goal: build a subscription product. Looka is a great transactional revenue business. However, as we so brutally learned, when you have a transactional revenue business all that revenue can disappear overnight, and you’re left with nothing. We called our subscription offering the Brand Kit. For about $100 / year it gave a user 300+ branding, marketing, and business designs that automatically matched their logo.
That was over a year ago. Since then we’ve pushed two major updates to the Brand Kit. Added curved text logos to our logo maker. Launched a business name generator. Launched custom branded websites, and a print shop. Not to mention running over 150 experiments. Looking at the results alone, you can tell we’ve been shipping oriented. Since you’ve made it this far, I hope you care as much about shipping as we do.
Why hire now?
Since Fall 2019 we’ve gotten along fine without hiring full time devs. We’ve used recruiter services to bring in contract developers as we’ve needed them. Dawson and I have done a lot of development, and we’ve made Looka a much more useful product for our users.
We’re hiring now because we need more committed hands to balance keeping the codebase nimble for the long term, and shipping new features and products. There are enough things going on now that we don’t have the attention to give to all the areas of the product to see them grow to their full potential.
Our current plan is to build a small dev team. We want a solid core of experienced developers who like shipping, like writing documentation, and who want to improve the codebase as they work on it.
Everyone we hire should have full-stack experience, so they can own features end to end. ReactJS/TypeScript/(Golang or NodeJS) experience is necessary. Kubernetes, and AWS would be useful. Graphic Design, Python, and data engineering experience could also help you stand out.
Uncommon but valuable experience would include deep knowledge of SVG, ability to make dynamic mockups, and prior experience working on graphic editors.
A strong candidate will be conscientious, self-motivated, detail oriented, a strong writer, and open to giving/receiving feedback.
What’s the job like?
We have 1 regular meeting a week. It’s a team wide sync that usually takes less than an hour.
We write our ideas and our plans out. We find it’s much easier to think critically while writing than while sitting in a meeting. It’s also easier to collect team feedback on written ideas, since it can be done asynchronously.
We’re fully remote. We have an office in downtown Toronto but you get no extra points for going in. It’s a quiet place to work if you need one, and an occasional set for filming videos.
Most communication is async. Outside of rare urgent situations, you never need to respond to something “right now”. Do your work, and respond to messages when it suits you.
Both Dawson and I write code. In fact, we love writing code. Part of the reason we’ve put off hiring until now is because it’s so much fun to write code. All this to say, your leaders appreciate what you do, and have empathy for how you work (including minimal meetings).
As far as management style goes, we focus on communicating things clearly (in writing and designs) and then getting out of your way. Not every dev wants such a hands-off management style, but if you are a dev that does, we think you’ll be able to do the best work of your life at Looka.
We’re benchmarking salaries and paying in the top 15% of Toronto employers for developers. We want you to be able to work without the nagging feeling that you could be making more elsewhere. If working at Looka is a good fit for you, then we’ll pay you enough so that you feel your abilities are appreciated.
The values that we’re building into the team
We use trunk based development
We love to write and read
We own our features
We ship as quickly as possible
We seek out feedback
We leave the codebase better than we found it
What’s next?
If this sounds like a place you’d like to work, then please apply through Angel List or message me on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you. We have big plans to continue growing profitably at Looka, and we need an incredible team to do that.
