Senior Elixir Developer / Technical Lead

About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Developer / Technical Lead with a minimum of 10 years of total professional experience, including a proven track record in technical leadership roles. This key position combines hands-on coding with high-level technical leadership responsibilities, requiring someone who can work independently while collaborating with our CTO and development team.

Strong, professional Elixir experience is a must for this role. Our team includes some of the most seasoned Elixir developers in the industry, including open-source maintainers and contributors to the Elixir language itself. Many team members own or have made significant contributions to major projects in the Elixir ecosystem, with some having over a decade of experience in functional programming and distributed systems.

Given the exceptional caliber of our existing team, the successful candidate will need to demonstrate exceptional technical skills and leadership ability to be viewed as a tech lead beyond just holding the title. To be considered a credible tech lead, candidates should have a history of guiding and influencing teams of senior developers, contributing to architectural decisions that have shaped large-scale systems, and driving technical innovation in previous roles.

While we may consider truly exceptional candidates with less Elixir experience, this would only be for individuals who excel significantly in other aspects of the role and have been specifically seeking opportunities to work with Elixir. Such candidates must demonstrate the ability to rapidly achieve proficiency in Elixir and contribute at a high level immediately.

This is a long-term contract position with our consulting company, Xuku LLC, working exclusively with a seed-stage startup client. The product we're developing has already secured significant enterprise clients, underscoring the importance and potential of this project. You'll be deeply involved with the client's product, but your direct relationship will be with our consulting company.

Candidates located in the Americas or Western Europe are preferred. The candidate's working hours will need to overlap for several hours per day with our CTO, who is based in California.

Key Responsibilities

• Actively develop and implement new features for our Phoenix/LiveView SaaS application, demonstrating a commitment to writing clean, efficient, and maintainable code
• Take ownership of projects and features, driving them from initial concept through to successful completion
• Collaborate with the CTO and dev team on architectural decisions and technical direction, while being able to work independently and make decisions autonomously when needed
• Proactively identify and address technical debt to improve system maintainability and performance
• Establish and enforce code review processes and coding standards that reflect best practices and a dedication to software craftsmanship
• Maintain overall code consistency and quality across the project, setting a high bar for technical excellence
• Mentor team members, fostering a culture that values continuous learning and refinement of development skills
• Lead technical decision-making processes in an asynchronous environment, balancing independence with effective collaboration
• Collaborate on SOC 2 certification process as needed
• Contribute to infrastructure and DevOps tasks, including CI/CD pipeline improvements and deployment optimizations, with a focus on creating robust, scalable systems
• Embrace our fully asynchronous work process, effectively managing your own time and communicating clearly through written channels
• Lead efforts in application optimization, including performance profiling, instrumentation, and implementing efficiency improvements

Required Skills and Experience

• Extensive experience (minimum 10 years) in developing and scaling large-scale SaaS applications, with a track record of seeing projects through from start to finish
• Proven technical leadership experience, including roles as a tech lead for multiple teams
• Strong, professional experience with Elixir and the Phoenix framework, particularly LiveView
• Experience in technical leadership and architectural decision-making, demonstrating the ability to make sound choices independently
• Proven ability to work effectively in remote, asynchronous development teams, balancing autonomous work with team collaboration
• Excellent communication skills, with a focus on clear, concise written communication
• Self-motivated with a demonstrated ability to take initiative, drive projects independently, and deliver results
• Deep understanding of and commitment to software development best practices, including testing, version control, and CI/CD
• Familiarity with infrastructure management and DevOps practices, with a focus on creating reliable, maintainable systems
• Comfort with and enthusiasm for fully asynchronous work processes, including the ability to manage time effectively without regular meetings or check-ins
• Strong skills in application performance optimization, profiling, and instrumentation
• Ability to rapidly learn and adapt to new technologies and programming paradigms

Preferred Qualifications

• Contributions to open-source projects, especially Elixir-related ones
• Experience with Fly.io or similar cloud deployment platforms
• Experience with database optimization and management in distributed systems
• A history of mentoring other developers and contributing to the growth of engineering teams
• Expertise in Elixir-specific performance optimization techniques and tools

Work Environment

• Fully remote position with a globally distributed team
• Completely asynchronous work process with no stand-ups, scheduled meetings, or other high-ceremony processes
• Ad hoc real-time interactions as needed, but with a strong emphasis on written communication
• Flexible hours to accommodate different time zones
• Collaborative environment with a team of Elixir enthusiasts and experts

Technical Environment

• Application deployed on Fly.io
• Currently in the process of obtaining SOC 2 certification, led by the CTO and a fractional CISO
• Emphasis on modern DevOps practices and infrastructure-as-code
• Strong focus on leveraging and contributing to the Elixir ecosystem
• Continuous performance monitoring and optimization

Compensation

We invite candidates to specify their desired rate, balancing competitive compensation with the realities of our seed-stage startup client. This long-term, stable contract position offers an opportunity to grow with the company. When proposing your rate, please consider both the potential for stability and the early stage of the client's business.

How to Apply

Please submit your application including:

1. Your resume or CV
2. A brief paragraph about yourself, highlighting how your experience and approach align with the role requirements and desirable qualities described above. Include your thoughts on async work, performance optimization, and your experience with or interest in Elixir.
3. Links to relevant projects or contributions (e.g., GitHub profile, open-source work)
4. Your desired rate for this long-term contract position

Please send your application to jobs@xuku.com with the subject line "Senior Elixir Developer / Technical Lead - Long-Term Remote Position".