applicants

About Us:
We’re two guys who create beautiful personal finance software that’s changing how people think about their money. Our software is named “You Need a Budget”, but everyone just calls it “YNAB”. For years now, lots of people have been buying YNAB and then telling their friends how awesome it is. (Google us or check out our Amazon reviews and you’ll see.) In short, things are going really well around here, and that means we want to hire another full time developer to help make YNAB even better. That’s where you come in.

About You:
You’re a fantastic programmer who wants to geek out with us and create simple, elegant software. You don’t necessarily know Actionscript/Flex/AIR code yet, but since you already know other managed languages like C#, Java, or Objective C, you’re confident you’ll pick it up quickly. You like the idea of working closely with our Lead Developer to improve our desktop software and brainstorm UI designs for mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Android phones.

You’re the one we’re looking for if you:

• Are an excellent programmer who will thrive as half of a two-person development team. We’ll give you time to learn languages, APIs, and platforms on the job. We’ll even mentor you to get better at software architecture and design. But we expect you to be an excellent programmer from the start.
• Know Flex/AIR. If not, you must be proficient in another managed language, like C#, Objective C, or Java.
• Have experience working in version control (SVN, Perforce, Git, etc).
• Have excellent debugging skills
• Have great Object Oriented design and architecture skills.
• Write code that is easy for other programmers to understand and use
• Have experience optimizing and profiling code
• Have excellent spoken and written English. Some of your job will involve talking to our customers in our forums, and we like to make a good impression.
• Work well without being micro-managed

You will get extra star treatment and bonus points if you:

• Have experience in iPhone, iPad, or Android development.
• Have experience in native languages (C, C++) as well.
• Have experience writing server-client code or consuming web-based APIs
• You’ve written your own program or spreadsheet to help you manage your finances.

Location:
We’re looking for someone in Austin, TX who is content to work from home when we’re not discussing code over a Tex-Mex lunch. If you don’t live in Austin, but are convinced you’re the one we’re looking for, we’ve got Skype and a bit of wanderlust, so we could still make it work.

Compensation and Benefits:
This is a full time (40 hrs/week), permanent position, and you’ll be paid as an independent contractor (1099).
You are free to work from anywhere you want, generally whenever you want. We prefer someone who lives in Austin, as that makes it easier to meet face to face, but we’ll consider any amazing candidates who apply.

To Apply:
Send an email to Taylor Brown at jobs@youneedabudget.com. Please also include your resume and/or links to your previous projects.

Also, please complete the following two extremely simple questions. This should take you 2-3 minutes. Literally. Without these programmer “CAPTCHAs”, we get spammed by recruiters and people who don’t know how to write a for loop.

1) Write a function “count” that returns a string containing every number from 0 to the number passed in.

public function count(toNumber : uint) : String
{
//Your code goes here
}
//So, when I call count like so:
result : String = count(10);
//result has the value “0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10”

Note: The above is in ActionScript, but you can fill it in with any language you feel comfortable in. There are no tricks here, and we don’t care about efficiency, edge cases, or comments. We estimate this will take you less than 2 minutes. In other words, don’t over think this. If you’re surprised I’m asking such a simple question, good!

2) You notice that every time you press a certain button in YNAB, the program appears to freeze for 10 seconds as it is busy doing something. You know that the button press should be almost instantaneous, so now you want to find out why it is taking so long. You begin reading through the code of the button handler, but there are about 50 function calls in there, and none of them are the obvious culprit. A debugger is already attached, and you have a full suite of development tools at your disposal. In one or two sentences, how do you determine why pressing this button is such a lengthy operation.