Software Engineer

Flowrite is a fast-moving early-stage startup founded by two productivity enthusiasts in fall 2020.

We are creating the world's fastest writing experience – a tool to supercharge the most common everyday writing tasks by turning words into ready-to-send emails, posts, and more. It's designed for those whose work depends on communicating effectively and powered by the latest advancements in AI and NLP.

Although biased, we think it's one of the coolest upcoming productivity tools out there. Many others think so too.
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We are building Flowrite on certain fundamental beliefs.

• Building in public. We believe that the best way to create early believers, build trust among users, and attract the best talent is to communicate openly about our journey – starting from the very early days. That's why we've posted biweekly product updates and shared our progress on social media ever since our launch.
• Fast execution. We got access to GPT-3 in 5 days, built our first prototype in 3 weeks, and launched Flowrite on week 4. We think it's crucial to build, launch, and iterate everything we do at a rapid pace – without making sacrifices on quality, culture, and user experience.
• Global mindset. We don't need to be in Silicon Valley to build a remarkable product and grow globally. However, it requires certain action to widen our reach beyond our local circles, which is why we've put a lot of thought into our distribution, brand, hiring, and who we choose to surround ourselves with.
• Remote by default. Our HQ is in Helsinki, but the Flowrite team is free to work wherever they prefer. Work around living instead of living around work.
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About the role

With our first hires, we believe in crafting the role around your unique skill set and interests instead of trying to force you into a too specific role.

Here's a broad overview of what the role is going to include:

• You will design and implement elegant APIs, user experiences, and the underlying infrastructure for a critical and highly visible product at Flowrite.
• You will work in creating the core data architecture that pumps life into our application.
• You will debug production issues across services at multiple levels of the stack.
• You get to contribute to the development of the ML and DL models.
• You'll get to impact the strategic decisions regarding our product. We are at a perfect stage to actively explore different things – ultimately finding the models and solutions to double down on.
• Based on your preference, you'll also have a chance to talk directly to our future users – professionals whose lives Flowrite will be improving.
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About you

• You enjoy being a generalist. Be it front-end, back-end, or data science work, all code deserves love and you are excited to get your hands dirty.
• You have the ability to learn on the fly and put processes together even if you haven't worked with them before.
• You love to invalidate assumptions. Thinking tech in terms of trade-offs is second nature to you. Maintenance cost, speed of development, performance, type-safety, security, and readability are just some of the variables for which you are known to optimize your code.
• You want to build reliable and highly available solutions that scale and endure – especially in the face of a growing user base. You have a solid appreciation of the challenges involved.
• You're passionate about our mission and want to be a part of a soon-international team that constantly learns, takes honest critique, and strives for better results. You love the excitement of working on cutting-edge products and want to create something that is world-class – both in terms of technology as well as user experience.
• You're a creative and critical thinker. You're able to find better solutions. You have the guts to tell people "no" when something doesn't make sense or contribute towards our purpose. You also want to have fun while doing your job and value the importance of a cohesive team. You believe in transparency and collaboration.

Nice to haves

• Experience in Linux and DevOps
• Interest in C++ or Rust
• Interest in functional programming
• Interest in cryptographic techniques
• Interest in distributed systems
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What we offer

• A place to make a significant impact. Over the upcoming years, you'll be making a major contribution to how our core product and the whole company are being shaped. This is the closest you can get to creating a lovable product from scratch or founding a startup of your own.
• Competitive salary & equity compensation. Joining Flowrite means you'll get to own a piece of the pie. If we as a company succeed, you will also.
• Flexibility. At Flowrite, we only do meetings when it's truly needed and don't require you to work 9-5, ever. Whatever schedule works the best for you and gets the job done, works the best for us as well.
• A productive work setup – either locally in Helsinki or remotely wherever you prefer to work. We'll cover the gear you need to be the most productive version of yourself.
• Latest productivity software. In addition to using e.g. Notion, Loom, Figma, and Flowrite on a daily basis, we are constantly testing new products in the productivity space.
• Personal development. We cover books and classes that you need to boost your learning curve. We are also happy to support you in growing your reach if that's something you're interested in – whether it's creating content (we have top-notch video and audio gear for recording and streaming), publishing your writings, or getting more active on social media.
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Process

1. Intro chat with Aaro (30-45min). The purpose is to get to know each other. We'd love to hear about your background and motivation, and we'll also go through the story of Flowrite and what we are up to. We can talk over Zoom or grab a coffee in downtown Helsinki – your choice!

2. Techy chat with Karolus (30-45min). The purpose is to give you a thorough overview of our product – tech stack, development process, roadmap, and more. You'll get to ask questions and we'd also love to hear about your sweet spot and interests within the areas we are working on.

3. Technical assessment (∼45min). The purpose is to learn more about your technical skills and your approach to building something Flowrite-related from scratch. This will consist of two parts:

• Demo of your choice. You're asked to present something you've created in the past – whether a hobby or a work project. We'd love to see at least a part of the codebase used, if possible.
• Problem-solving. We'll introduce you to a new concept/challenge related to our product and will ask about your approach to it. No coding needed, just talking.

4. Final conversation (∼30min). Before the final decision, we'd like to discuss some practicalities and hear about any thoughts or questions you may have come up with during the process.
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How to apply

Reach out to Aaro ([email protected] / Twitter / LinkedIn) with:

• A link to your LinkedIn profile/CV
• A short explanation – e.g. a couple of bullet points – of what makes you excited about Flowrite