Product Engineer at Smaller Earth Group

We are looking for a talented product engineer to join the team, with prior experience of working with Ruby on Rails.

You will be joining a newly formed internal product team - it’s a small team, so your work will carry great weight and have a great impact on the business.

The product is built with Ruby on Rails. Other highlights of our tech stack include a few screens built with React, Unpoly (yep, we ditched Hotwire) and Postgres. Our payments engine is built on Stripe, we use Git to manage code, Git Hub Actions for CI, and we host with Render.

This role is ideal if:

• you enjoy churning out new features that solve real problems
• you consider yourself a product engineer, rather than a developer
• you have an affinity for Rails, have worked with it for 5+ years, and have opinions on how to deal with its shortcomings at scale
• when the time is right, you like to revel in the detail
• you enjoy building delightful user experiences, and secretly don’t mind building the odd feature in React
• you’ve had experience in building out fast-growing products before
• you have a natural urge to share an interesting product the moment you see one
• you’re excited for AI to speed up your workflow
• you’re passionate about enabling growth opportunities for young people, especially through work and travel
• Annual leave: 23 days, increasing with every year served up to 30 days, plus bank holidays.
• Pension: 5% employee and 3% employer contributions
• Mental health support: we offer support via Spill, offering free same-day therapist support for all employees
• Location: whilst most of the product team work remotely, we meet in-person occasionally (~once a quarter) at our headquarters located on the iconic Docks in Liverpool city centre. We've got a prime city office location with scenic views, and near some great places for lunch
• Development budget: "Self-development" is a company value, and we provide budget for staff to explore new learning opportunities
• Tooling: everyone has access to a paid AI tool, and we regularly tinker with tools that have potential for productivity gains (Claude Code for coding, Gemini prototypes, etc)
• International travel opportunities: it’s what we do after all…

Smaller Earth Group is a global leader in life-changing cultural exchange, dedicated to inspiring people to go further. Since our founding in Liverpool in 1999, we’ve grown to operate brands across 18 markets, including core programs like Camp Leaders, Resort Leaders, and Camp Canada, that create meaningful opportunities worldwide.

We recently became an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT), a milestone that reflects our commitment to putting people at the heart of our business. As an employee-owned company, every team member plays a key role in shaping our future and shares in our collective success.

At Smaller Earth, we foster a culture of collaboration, ambition, and purpose. Whether you’re contributing to strategic initiatives or working on exciting projects, you’ll be part of a supportive team that encourages growth and celebrates achievements.

Join us and be part of a workplace where purpose meets passion. Together, we’re building a brighter future for cultural exchange and beyond.