Staff IT Engineer
Hey! My name is John and I started here at Ashby as IT Manager around 6 months ago, excited to meet you! In that time Ashby has grown from ~250 to 320 folks and the scope of what we’re doing in IT has expanded, with this role we hope to continue the steep trajectory for the team and the world-class support for the company.
Currently the IT team here is just me, we want to grow that team to keep giving the Ashby team world-class service and the most automated, delightful technology to work with during their time at Ashby.
All the responsibilities and requirements are outlined below so have a look. Some points to consider as you’re reading through:
This job spec might look familiar, we previously opened this role as Senior ~2 months ago. After seeing some great candidates (and lots of progress internally with the scope of IT) it became clear we need more than we should expect at a Senior in terms of demonstrated experience and technical ability. We've updated the role and compensation and we're looking to find someone with deeper technical and "foundational" experience than would be expected at a Senior level.
This is fundamentally a technical role which will become the pivotal role in a larger team as we continue to scale. That means you’ll be chatting and helping other Ashby folks directly just as much as you will be throwing JSON blobs around between APIs. We’re looking for someone who is comfortable doing both.
As folks in IT we strongly believe in technology as a great enabling force. We’re always looking for novel ways to tackle problems at the fundamental level and that means we’re looking for someone who sees the world a little differently. You should be able to provide clear examples from previous experience of what innovation and technical excellence can look like in the IT/Client Engineering space.
Finally, the problems we help people tackle daily are as much emotional as they are technical. Whilst it’s great to be able to provide the best technical solution to an issue we strive to be able to deliver emotional catharsis alongside this. That means listening to people, meeting them where they are and providing the reassurance, empathy and the genuine human connection that every great support interaction should have.
I’m the hiring manager for this role and would be the manager for the successful candidate as well. If you want to learn a little more of my background I have a public about me page you’re welcome to look through!
Responsibilities:
Own and fix customer issues from ingest through to resolution, whether that’s a one-time fix or a deeply technical project affecting the whole org
Offer, advocate and then implement best practices for an IT function that is securely creating the most productive workforce in the world
Own projects across device management (think Kandji, Crowdstrike), identity management (think Okta, Google Workspace), hardware logistics (think laptop shipping, accessories lifecycle) and user lifecycle (onboarding, offboarding and user changes) to automate manual process and reduce our touchpoints to solely those where the human interaction matters
Requirements:
A strong belief that end user support is an equally important part of being a well-rounded engineer as building world-class automations
Deep experience - that means being able to show deep, specific knowledge and broader architectural understanding - across relevant IT systems (device management, identity management)
Demonstrated experience of automating the interplay between these IT systems and other internal systems, that means handling APIs, MCP servers and glue-code for making disparate systems talk
Comfort and interest in helping build a stateless internal backend composed of Typescript services, pub/sub queues and APIs for both downstream and upstream applications
Desire to work in and help build a small team of experts with an open, engaged and radically efficient profile
The ambition to challenge norms and build for scale and flexibility outside of the expected
The humility to accept the thoughts and emotions of others as valuable before your own and be vulnerable in front of others
The wisdom to know when it’s best to apply the above
Non-requirements:
Experience in exactly our tech stack. Whilst experience at this seniority is expected, we're looking for systems knowledge first, experience in certain specific platforms a distant second
A specific timezone. Whilst US timezones are preferred to help us cover a gap in our current coverage this is not a requirement, we're remote-friendly and can hire across Europe, the UK and US and other countries for the right candidate. Salaries outside of the US would be location-dependent. We will sponsor visas where possible for the right candidate.
A sample of what you would be working on:
Helping end users with their everyday issues, tracing those back to root causes and rolling out fixes that are structural and lasting
Leading the initiative to build an internal backend that allows for moving data and performing business logic between systems in a way that's scalable, auditable, testable and production-grade
Using Terraform and Git to make our critical systems (device management, IAM) transparent, self-documenting, audit-ready and auto-deployed
Defining and implementing authentication rules for users that tie directly and elegantly to the governing policies whilst providing industry-leading security
Building out role-based access control and birthright access as well as owning and tackling the people-data challenges that stem from this
What you’ll not be working on:
Break/fix cycles where root causes can be tackled. You will be empowered to fix problems not delay symptoms.
Non-stop tickets. Everyone in the team is expected to contribute equally to interrupt-driven and systemic issues, no first or second line here.
Traditional corporate IT. We use a relatively standard “startup stack” which means nearly everything is cloud based, devices are majority MacOS with a very small Linux subset and we have the agency and ability to move fast and with outsized impact.
If you’d like to hear a little more about the role, there's a video walkthrough originally recorded for the previous posting here:
How this hiring process works
We want to try and be as transparent as possible about how our hiring process works. Here's what we're doing for this role:
The application stage
We'll be keeping this role open until it's filled. This is different from the previous (Senior) posting where we used cohort hiring, we believe the high bar for a Staff level means we need to optimise for getting the most eyes on the posting.
That means if you're reading this posting the role is open and you're welcome to apply.
There are no auto-reject rules on this role. If you apply your application will be reviewed by a human with AI help.
We will reply to every application letting you know whether we'd like to advance or not.
Considering the large volume of applications we won't be able to give specific feedback at this point. Apologies but we want to be thoughtful and considered with any feedback we do provide and we can't do this at the application phase.
The interview process
If you're invited to continue with the application - congratulations! Here's what will happen next:
You will be invited to book time in for a 20 minute screen call. We'll be looking for answers to initial questions like:
Are your compensation and job role expectations aligned with this role?
Why do you want this role?
Can you clearly and crisply convey both your technical and social capability to excel in this role?
Are there outstanding questions we can answer?
Assuming this goes well we'll invite you back for a longer (60 minute) hiring manager interview with me. In this interview we will:
Dive much deeper in to your background and try and tease out concrete examples of technical ability
Test your ability to think more broadly and ambitiously about what excellence looks like in IT
Answer any deeper questions you might have now we're further into the process and you have more context on the company and tech stack.
The next stage is a take-home test which has the following format:
Given a broad problem area, propose a technical spec on how you would ideally fix this
Speculate on feedback you might receive and answers you might give from both technical and non-technical peers
Following this, you'll get to meet some more of the team! Specifically you'll have a cross-functional interview where you'll meet:
Someone from the People function who will have some questions about interacting with the People team and how to build a successful relationship across functions.
Someone from the Support function who will ask about how best to delight customers and provide the best experience possible in a sustainable way.
As a final step, you'll have a chance to meet with Abhik who will be completing a final appraisal of your fit for the role. This is also a great opportunity to answer any burning questions you might have about Ashby from someone with all of the context!
Benefits
Competitive salary and equity.
10-year exercise window for stock options. You shouldn’t feel pressure to purchase stock options if you leave Ashby —do it when you feel financially comfortable.
Twelve weeks of fully paid family leave in the US. We plan to expand this to employees in other countries as situations arise.
Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget. Get what you need to be happy and productive!
$100/month education budget with more expensive items (like conferences) covered with manager approval.
If you’re in the US, top-notch health insurance for you and your dependents with all premiums covered by us.
Ashby provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.