Who We Are

New Vector is the open source software development startup which employs the core team behind Matrix.org – the leading project for secure open decentralised communication. Matrix’s mission is to create a universal open network and protocol for real-time communication. New Vector builds flagship apps for Matrix such as Riot.im as well as contributing to the core Matrix open source clients, SDKs, servers, bridges and the protocol itself.

We believe that the future of the internet should be decentralised and open, that previously siloed communications platforms should be interoperable and that individuals should control their own data and choose who they share it with.

Ultimately, our aim is to make it as simple to message or video call anyone in the world as it is to send them an email.

Our products are for everyone and we know we cannot succeed without a diverse team. Our hiring process is designed to be humane and give candidates the best possible chance to show us what you can do. If we ever fall down on this, please let us know.

The Role

This roles covers all aspects of operational support for New Vector managed infrastructure. Our approach is that developers own their services and have responsibilities for operations and maintenance, including out of hours. The ops team focus on building out tooling and base infrastructure to make operational support of these systems easier and more efficient. They work with the rest of the engineering team to introduce new practices and support existing ones.

Example projects include:

• Roll out and support of Matrix technology to 5 million French civil servants
• Design from scratch autonomous deployment and management tooling of hosted Matrix home server instances underpinning our Modular hosting platform LINK
• Lead efforts to move matrix.org internal systems towards an infrastructure as code paradigm.

Since almost everything we do is open source you can get a good feel for exactly what it would be like to work on these projects, and similarly joining dev-centric channels such as #matrix-dev:matrix.org provides a window into the core team and the community. Come and say hi!

About you

The most important thing is that you believe passionately in the mission of decentralisation of the internet. More specifically that you believe that communications should not be concentrated in the hands of a small number of very large organisations and instead individuals should control their own data and choose who they share it with.

Additionally, we are looking for someone who:

• Is good at finding clean and elegant solutions to problems
• Likes to ship early and often
• Cares about what they do
• Is articulate and empathetic.
• Is comfortable with the pace, trade offs and ambiguity of an early stage startup (specifically: how to take care of yourself and get your work done without working crazy hours).

Your experience

We don’t have hard requirements for the role, we just want to build the best possible team, but as a bonus it would be great if some of the following are true.

• Experience of supporting and maintaining distributed systems at scale
• Experience maintaining and/or contributing to open source projects
• Experience with Ansible, Docker, AWS (though we also use other providers)
• Experience working in a continuous delivery environment
• Experience in IM or VoIP communications

Our general approach is to treat people like adults and acknowledge that by being flexible we create an environment for people to do their best work. For more details here is our manifesto. That said specific points that differentiate us.

• Work (almost) full time on FOSS projects with high visibility and a large enthusiastic community
• Since our technology is relevant to anything that requires real-time comms, the role provides exposure to a wide range of domains from web and app dev through to VR, VoIP and IoT.
• Health, dental and travel insurance.
• Family friendly environment, many of the team have small children and we look to accommodate that as best we can.
• People tend to stay with the company for a long time, we take this a sign that we have a cohesive supportive culture, that we have engaging challenging work and that people can develop their skills and careers here for the long term.
• Free good coffee.
• We like food a lot, we have some excellent chefs on the team, and Chiswick has some great places for lunch. You will eat well :)

New Vector does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, colour, religion, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other reason prohibited by law in provision of employment opportunities and benefits.