Careers

blist is an early stage, well-capitalized startup in Seattle. We are not a company with modest ambitions. We're building a rich Internet application that will disrupt the decades-old database market, and open it up to a new constituency - mainstream users who want results but who don't have the time or inclination to become database wizards (although we think database wizards are pretty cool).

blist is new. The core team is small and tight knit - just a handful of passionate software engineers, UX designers and marketing folks.

The blist engineering team combines strong academic computer science foundations with significant success and relevant experience at places like Microsoft and Amazon. Our founder is an accomplished entrepreneur and technologist whose last startup was acquired by Microsoft in 2005.

We're looking for a few exceptionally talented and passionate individuals to join blist's core team:

Software Engineer

We're looking for an exceptionally strong software engineer, grounded with good fundamentals in data structures, problem solving, algorithm design and distributed computing to help build our core service offering. The ideal candidate will have the following attributes:

* 3 to 6 years of professional software engineering experience

* Demonstrated strength and productivity with at least one strictly typed, object oriented language like C++ or Java

* Comfortable working with at least one dynamically typed scripting language like Ruby, Python, Perl or Smalltalk

* Competent working with multiple database technologies including RDBMS, Berkeley DB's, etc.

* Comfortable working with XML including XQuery and XPath

* Comfortable working in a hetergenous development environment where you'll be working with multiple development languages and technologies

* Competent working with web services (SOAP, REST, JSON, etc.)

* Some experience with Ruby on Rails is beneficial

* Some experience with JavaScript or ActionScript (Flex/Flash) is beneficial

* Some experience in and around Linux/Unix administration is desired

* Self starter who's anxious to start producing

A bachelor's degree in computer science, math or physics is required. A masters degree in computer science is preferred.

This position is based in our office in Seattle, WA.

If you are an accomplished software engineer with the experience and drive to succeed at blist, email your resume, as well as the source code for the programming challenge below, to software_engineer at blist dot com.

Programming challenge:

Without using any built in date or time functions, write a program that accepts two mandatory arguments. The first argument is a string of the format "[H]H:MM {AM|PM}" and the second argument is an integer. Assume the integer is the number of minutes to add to the string. The return value or output of the program should be a string of the same format as the first argument. For example AddMinutes("9:13 AM", 10) would return "9:23 AM". The exercise isn't meant to be too hard. We just want to see how you code. Feel free to do it procedurally or in an object oriented way, whichever you prefer. Use any language you want. While we don't want you to spend an inordinate amount of time on this, make sure you send us commercial quality, production ready code. It's part of the interview process, designed to give you an opportunity to do your best work without time constraint and with all your tools at your disposal.

Senior Software Engineer

We're looking for an exceptionally strong and accomplished senior software engineer with significant experience in building massively scalable, distributed computing systems to help lead the development of our core service offering. The ideal candidate will have the following attributes:

* At least 6 years of professional software engineering experience including at least 3 years experience as a senior software engineer and/or dev lead

* Demonstrated mastery of at least one strictly typed, object oriented language like C++ or Java

* Proficiency with at least one dynamically typed scripting language like Ruby, Python, Perl or Smalltalk

* Demonstrated excellence working with database technologies including RDBMS, Berkeley DB's, etc.

* Experience developing distibuted database systems and/or distributed storage systems is preferred.

* Comfortable working with XML including XQuery and XPath

* Comfortable working in a hetergenous development environment where you'll be working with multiple development languages and technologies

* Competent developing web services APIs

* Excellent communicator

* Natural mentor

* Self starter who's anxious to start producing

A bachelor's degree in computer science, math or physics is required. A masters degree in computer science is preferred.

This position is based in our office in Seattle, WA.

If you are an accomplished senior software engineer with the experience and drive to succeed at blist, email your resume, as well as the source code for the programming challenge below, to senior_software_engineer at blist dot com.

Programming challenge:

Without using any built in date or time functions, write a program that accepts two mandatory arguments. The first argument is a string of the format "[H]H:MM {AM|PM}" and the second argument is an integer. Assume the integer is the number of minutes to add to the string. The return value or output of the program should be a string of the same format as the first argument. For example AddMinutes("9:13 AM", 10) would return "9:23 AM". The exercise isn't meant to be too hard. We just want to see how you code. Feel free to do it procedurally or in an object oriented way, whichever you prefer. Use any language you want. While we don't want you to spend an inordinate amount of time on this, make sure you send us commercial quality, production ready code. It's part of the interview process, designed to give you an opportunity to do your best work without time constraint and with all your tools at your disposal.

Systems Engineer

We’re looking to hire our first engineer focused on ops automation. This is primarily a software engineering role, although to be successful you’ll need to have roots in and a passion for systems administration. At blist systems engineers develop software that automates as much of operations as possible. The goals are fully lights out operation via automated systems deployment, imaging, monitoring, error detection and healing. To qualify you’ll need to meet most of the following prerequisites:

* Ability to design and develop production quality automation code, preferably in python but at minimum in perl

* Solid understanding and experience with PXE boot based automated image deployment

* Good familiarity with Xen or other virtualization software

* Good familiarity with systems monitoring software (Nagios, etc.)

* Broad Unix/Linux systems administration experience

* Some experience in database administration is helpful, but not mandatory

* Passion for distributed computing

blist is a well capitalized startup developing database as a service, operated at Internet scale. We’re solving some really interesting challenges and have a terrific team of passionate engineers. If you are interested in joining us, send your resume along with the solution to the following challenge:

Assume you have a network comprised of 1,000 servers in 10 different data centers - 100 servers in each data center. The data centers are in multiple time zones. Write a centralized script that runs on the Linux PC in your office, which identifies the server in the network which was most recently rebooted. The output should identify the server, the data center it’s in, the date & time when it was last rebooted and how long the script ran in order to find the results. Your script must finish in less than 5 minutes (300 seconds). At any time 2% or 3% of the servers will be offline.

Your solution should include:

* A description of your assumptions about network topology - how your Linux PC connects to each server

* Any other base assumptions you make about the servers in the network

* A description and, if appropriate, the layout of any configuration file(s) you’ll need to solve the problem

* Commercial quality perl or python code that solves the problem and prints the results

This position is based in our office in Seattle, WA.

If ops automation at Internet scale is your passion, drop us a note. We’d love to hear from you.

Product Manager

blist is looking for an experienced product manager to help shape our service, spread the word about it and help get it in the hands of customers. Unwavering customer empathy is required. Demonstrated ability to think strategically and to collaborate with engineering teams and senior management is required. Experience driving customer acquisition for consumer and/or small businesses web applications is also required. This is a hands on role, contributing on major product themes and development of the roadmap taking products from concept to launch.

Qualified candidates will have at least 4 years professional experience in product management and/or marketing. A bachelor's degree is required. Strong work ethic, resourcefulness and creativity are also required.

This position is based in our office in Seattle, WA.

If you are a savvy product manager with the experience bringing comsumer-facing Internet applications to market in a cost effective, customer pleasing, market impacting way, email your resume to product_manager at blist dot com.