Senior Product Engineer

Why we matter:

Aura connects people around the world through a brilliant and simple photo-sharing experience on our customers’ digital picture frames. We are driven to connect people and deliver joy by liberating the wonderful photos that might otherwise stay trapped on smartphones. Technology and innovation are at the core of every decision we make, but always in the service of bringing families and friends closer together.

How you will add value:

You will join our growing Product Engineering team and work closely with designers and product managers to build new features, improve the experience, and ship API & Web updates to millions of happy customers. Our apps are the primary touch point for our product and are the key to delighting our customers, so we are dedicated to finding someone who takes a strong customer-focused engineering approach.

We believe that our customers and their needs should be at the center of every technical decision, and we are relentlessly focused on delivering the best possible product. As a member of a small team, you will be directly responsible for a variety of important projects. The team works values quick iteration and close collaboration with designers, product managers, and other stakeholders across the company.

The stack:

Our API is built on Ruby on Rails. Our iOS mobile app is a hybrid of Swift and Objective-C (SwiftUI and UIKit), while our Android mobile app is a hybrid of Kotlin and Java (Jetpack Compose and XML). We have developed a highly performant photo upload pipeline that runs in the foreground and in the background, so our users’ photos can be seamlessly processed.

We also have a communication stack built on Core Bluetooth and the Wireless Accessory Configuration (WAC) protocol, to make managing our hardware device simple and intuitive for our users. Our frame runs an Android app that shares code with our mobile client app, providing a connected way for us to build new features and fix bugs. Our web app and the ability to text photos to the frames also provide key connectivity touch points for our customers.

What excites you about this opportunity:

• Driven to help Aura in our mission to build private social networks for families
• Ready to own projects from the first line of code, through testing, to production, as well as monitoring analytics after it is released
• Develop new features, fix bugs, and make other improvements to our API & Web app
• Maintain and improve build systems, testing infrastructure, and QA processes
• Work on our iOS app, Android app, and the frame app as needed to support new app features
• Collaborate with designers and product managers to deliver beautiful and functional new features
• Participate in code reviews on Git Hub – when one of us shines, we all shine
• Be responsible for your own weekly tasks through self-organization, communication, and time management
• Participate in our sprint rituals (sprint planning, daily stand, retros), as well as other team and company meetings

We are excited about you because:

• You have at least 5 years of API & Web experience, including at least two years on a service at scale with at least 10,000 monthly active users
• You have recent startup experience
• You have a deep familiarity with Rails technologies and trends
• You have experience building world-class UI on the web
• You are comfortable working in a small team and taking ownership over various aspects of the app
• You are focused on user experience and using qualitative and quantitative data to measure success: metrics, research, and feedback
• You take a detail-oriented approach to user interface, including comfort digging into design files
• You work iteratively and think from the customer’s perspective
• You are self-motivated and can learn new skills quickly
• You can clearly communicate your decisions and can present your work to stakeholders, including our founders and other executives
• You are located in NYC or San Francisco, and are excited to join us in the office at least 3 days a week
• You are comfortable working on a distributed team

Because you matter:

We believe in creating a happy and supportive work environment, so you can excel at your job and enjoy coming into work…