hackworth :

Please note: this role has been filled and is no longer available.

Thank you for your interest in this position. Unfortunately, it's no longer available. We've left the original job posting here for reference, to give you an idea of the kinds of things we're working on. Please see our jobs page for up-to-date information on any positions that are currently available, and what benefits we offer.




Front-end web developer, full time, London

Salary range: £50,000—£60,000 per year


Hackworth are hiring a full time front-end web developer in London, United Kingdom. This is an on-site role. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you'll be working from home somewhere in the UK until it's safe to return to a shared office space.

In this role, you'll help us prototype and build the user interface for our first product: a novel, interactive learning environment for programming, rooted in functional programming principles, with a particular focus on structure editing and the visualization of program execution. You'll join our existing team of 3 Haskell developers and a UX designer.

We're currently in the prototyping phase, so over the next 6 months, you'll have the opportunity to invent novel user interfaces and interactions for helping kids learn to program. In the spring of 2021, we'll begin production work, with the goal of beginning beta testing with schools and learning organizations by the end of 2021.

This role does not include any on-call, devops, or customer support requirements. You'll be focused exclusively on creating a great programming environment for kids and teachers.

About us

Hackworth Ltd is a well-financed, bootstrapped, private limited company based in London, United Kingdom. Our purpose is to make programming relevant to the interests of children of all backgrounds. Our first step toward that goal is to develop programming languages and tools that are designed for learning about computation.

We're committed to building a sustainable, ethical, socially responsible business. We serve children and schools; therefore, we'll never fund our business by selling ad placements or exploiting compulsion loops via loot boxes or micro-transactions. We want to build products that have genuine value to our users. See our about page for our commitment.

Tech

Our software stack to date is Haskell and Nix. We use macOS and NixOS on the desktop, and NixOS and AWS services everywhere else.

We've yet to decide on a front-end web-native language and framework, so you'll play a key role in helping us define this critical part of our software stack. You'll also be interfacing with our Haskell back-end, so you'll have the chance to get some experience with that language as well, if you wish.

Your qualifications

To apply for this role, you should meet the following requirements:

  1. At least 2 years' experience developing production-quality web-based user interfaces. You should be proficient with JavaScript, PureScript, or TypeScript.
  2. You can be on-site at our London office at least 4 days per week, once it's safe to return to a shared office space. Our standard remote working policy requires that you be on-site most days, though this policy is currently indefinitely suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Until it's safe to return to a shared office space, you can work remotely from anywhere within the UK. For details on our current COVID-19 remote working policy, and the conditions under which we'd consider a return to our standard remote working policy, please see here.
  3. You're eligible to work in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, we're not able to offer visas to work in the UK at this time. If you're an EU/EEA/Swiss citizen and you're concerned about Brexit, please see here.

It'll also help your application if you have a public GitHub, GitLab, or equivalent public portfolio demonstrating source code you've written personally. This code could be work you've done for previous employers, for personal projects, or for open source projects. Your portfolio need not demonstrate entire projects written by you — it could consist of substantial contributions you've made to third-party projects. A portfolio demonstrating novel web-based UIs or games is a plus.

If you don't have a public code portfolio, we understand. Not everyone has the luxury of working for an employer that's friendly to open source, or perhaps you don't like spending your personal time writing code for yourself or other open source projects. If you're unable to point to any substantial examples of code you've written, we may ask you to submit a relatively simple program to demonstrate your skills, instead.

If you're familiar with any of the following topics, that's a definite plus, and you should mention it in your application, but please note that these are not required for the role:

  • Assistive technologies (screen readers, ARIA, etc.)
  • PureScript and Halogen
  • D3.js, WebGL, or other HTML5 canvas-based graphics APIs
  • Structure editing a la Hazel
  • Block-based programming a la Scratch or Blockly
  • Functional programming

Finally, please take a moment to review our frequently-asked questions about working at Hackworth, to make sure you're compatible with our environment, our policies, and our culture.

Benefits

We offer the following benefits:

To apply

Please note: this role has been filled and is no longer available.

To apply for this role, please submit a CV to [email protected]. Even if you're unsure about your fit, or if you have any additional questions about the role, or about working at Hackworth in general, please get in touch! We'd rather hear from you than not.

Hackworth are committed to diversity. We are an equal opportunities employer and do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, color, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age.