We are looking for a senior developer working closely with the rest of the tech team and the CTO. You will be building the future of skill-identity and skill-verification in markets who deeply need them! Building on self sovereign identity standards! You will be developing on our platform hosted in Google Cloud, while making sure everything is served in our mobile app, and web clients. You will get the chance to improve our build pipeline while also improving our running infrastructure.

About the job

We are an early-stage startup with all hands on deck and can ensure interesting tech challenges and a great team to work with. From ideation, to production and tracking numbers for impact - we believe in broad team collaboration on all levels to make the best product. As a senior developer you will come in to the team and contribute to all critical functions of Diwala

So... what do we do?

We create digital solutions for identifying and verifying talent. Our vision is to infuse the global skill market with trust and transparency - to incentivize growth and independence. Our mission is to provide a digital proof of skills for talent around the world. No little task - we know! But we have a lot of fun doing it.

We work from anywhere, always.

In Diwala we work from wherever we want, and have done so for years. A lot of companies are now opening their eyes to remote working and although it is not for everyone, it suits us perfectly. As an employer in Diwala you will be able to meet colleagues physically if you are based in Kampala, Nairobi, Oslo or Colombo but our process is optimized for remote work. Don’t worry - we make sure to get to know each other and have a coffee-chat from a distance ☕️or company trips.

Being a remote/distributed company means we need to stay innovative in our development processes and staying together as a team. We hold digital workshops and find smart solutions for insight and understanding, to build the best product we can!

Stuff we do as developers in Diwala:

We are diving deeper into self sovereign identity standards, blockchain technology and cryptographic techniques such as JOSE, BIP-32, Elliptic curve and other standards in the identity space. Hope you are up for it!

Other than that, you will be developing on our Nodejs/Typescript backend hosted in Google Cloud, while making sure everything is served in our React Native app, and React Web platform.

You will get the chance to improve our build pipeline with Github actions, CircleCI and Fastlane scripts. While also improving our running infrastructure, built with Kubernetes and Google Functions for now. Passion for efficient infrastructure helps in this job!

We are not many developers at this early stage, which means you will be getting hands on quickly and you will put out some fires, including incident response and remediation. But our main focus is always reliability and robustness. What we deliver should be able to live for a long time and be easily expanded on. Less-flammable apps; fewer smoldering embers; automated fire suppression. No heroics. This job isn’t about moving heaven and earth. Yes, we want to be proud of running top-flight, healthy products, but we also want to be kind, considerate, fair, flexible, and calm. Especially in crisis.

• Implementing an initial decentralized identity service to fully empower the user with data control, and control of your digital self.

• Building a mobile app with a trusted credential view for claiming and sharing. Making a users skill verification and job application more efficient and trustworthy.

• Building an administration dashboard for course providers to invite, manage, and sign of credentials to the people attending that course.

• Issued the first digital credentials backed by blockchain, ever in Africa

• Evolving our hybrid Kubernetes-based Google Function development environment to improve ergonomics for designers & developers.

• Making sure that release pipeline is operating smoothly, so that everybody is able to deploy and release early versions of what they are building on.

• Digging into new technology as the DID and VC standard from W3C, to make sure our platform operates at full compliance and provides the best value possible.

This is a snapshot of what it feels to build with Diwala, as a supportive team for the long haul. Your experience and background will join ours! We have worlds to learn and we’re eager to do it together. You can expect to teach us, coach us, and expect the same in return.

About you

We’re looking for an experienced candidate who’s ready for a job with breadth and depth, but nobody hits the ground running. There are a lot of different areas of responsibility! You won’t be able to answer every question immediately or know how all the systems work on day one, and we don’t expect you to. Existing solid fundamentals with software development, systems, troubleshooting, and teamwork pave the way.

What we look for in a person, is someone to match the current team in values and principles. We’re committed generalists, eager learners, conscientious workers, and curators of what’s essential. We’re quick to trust. We see things through. We’re kind to each other and support each other. We reach for responsibility and hold ourselves accountable. We show up for doing the work and for each other. And we do love the freedom a tech job employs. We value people who can take a stand yet commit, even when they disagree. And understand the value in others being heard. We subject ideas to rigorous consideration and challenge each other, but all remember that we’re here for the same purpose: to do good work together. Continuous feedback with an openness to each other is crucial. Because we are in this for the long term.

We want strong, diverse teams built from different backgrounds, experiences, and identities. We’re ready for the ongoing work that goes into building an inclusive, supportive place for you to do the best work of your career. 

You can expect a mindful onboarding process with ramp-up and time to learn. You can expect a team that listens, and to be heard. You can expect to give and provide direct feedback. You can expect to be counted on. You can expect to do your best work and build a career here.

You might have a CS degree. You might not. That’s not what we’re looking for. We care about what you can do and how you do it, not about how you got here. A strong track record of conscientious, thoughtful work, speaks volumes.

This is a remote job. You should be comfortable working remotely—most of the company does! That hinges on effective writing and comfort with open communication. We have efficient remote meetings but we do tend to do the bulk of our work in written format. This is everything from pull request discussion, feedback and comments on Trello or our other tools such as Figma and Miro, to long-form proposals and team chats. 

Practicalities

• We do require that your normal workday has at least 4 hours overlap with the Oslo workday (currently UTC+1) without impinging on your personal/family life. 

• Our team currently spans, UTC+2, UTC+3, UTC+5:30, UTC-5 The company as a whole works from 4+ cities across 4 countries. 

• We are an early stage startup, that run with a clear focus. We want to achieve our goals while we strive for a work life balance. Norwegian law say it is expected to work a normal 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. We feel that is a nice balance. But to expectation control the situation, there will be times that require heavier dedication. But expectations are to work a normal 8 hours work day, 5 days a week. 

• As stated above, work life balance is super important. We have goals we want to achieve and therefore we have decided that there is a flexible vacation policy. You will get 5 weeks paid out each year, but it is up to you to plan and adjust to the amount of time of vacation days needed for a good work life balance.

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How to apply

We’re accepting applications until 2020-11-05 23:59:00 UTC. There’s no benefit to filing early or writing a novel. Keep it sharp, short, and get across what matters to you.

What happens next: 

1. We expect to use an extra 6 days to review all applications coming in.

2. You’ll hear from us at the latest by November 10th, about the next step in the procedure, but can hear from us earlier. We are trying to process all incoming applications as fast as possible.

3. There will be a small homework, not related to Diwala work, for us to get a quick understanding of what you know,  who you are and your background. That includes simple theoretical questions and an invitation to explain some the code your proud of, which you will review, and tell its story. This is to also get a feel of how you will work in a remote culture.

4. Then on to an interview, where our interviews are one hour, all remote, with your future colleagues, on your schedule. We’ll talk through simple tech questions and general questions to get to know eachother better. There will be no gotchas, no concrete right or wrong answers, or whiteboard coding. 

5. We do consider after shortening down the list from interviews, doing a remote pair code session, but have not yet decided. You will be informed if this becomes the case.

6. We aim to make an offer at least by 1st of December with a preferred start date in January/early February.

We know this is a lot of work and there’s a lot on the line. It’s a significant career move to consider. We appreciate the generosity and courage that go into giving us that consideration. Our conversation starts with this post. We look forward to hearing from you.