My good friends at Abi Global Health have a role open for a full-time, senior engineer based at their Barcelona office (in Eixample, near Provença and Diagonal stations). Abi makes medical advice from doctors easily available to everyone via consumer messaging services (telegram, whatsapp, FB messenger, etc).

It is my pleasure to be a minor angel investor in the business (read the post from two years ago about why I invested), and I have been watching (and helping where I can) them grow the business over the last few years. In 2018 Abi grew significantly on all metrics - launching in new languages and completing trials with some of the largest health insurance companies in the world, despite being a very small team.

They are now expanding the engineering team.

This is a phenomenal opportunity for someone to join a company right at the tipping point of growth. I am often asked career advice by people - my main advice is always the same: join a company that is growing fast, it will open up so many opportunities for you. Abi Global Health is exactly such a company.

Why should apply you for this role?

  • Abi is solving a BIG problem - this is not wasting your life slapping some banner ads on webpages. Abi is used by people to get health advice from trusted doctors. The questions that come in make it clear this service is having a profound impact on people’s lives.

  • This is deeply interesting product, they are literally inventing the future, making it simple for people to get specific medical advice, pushing the limits of what is the norm in the consumer messaging and medical environments. Messaging is a megatrend that is here to stay. It is moving from “toy” to being used in critical situations. Abi is at the cutting edge of that trend.

  • They are a fun, international team of very smart people. Here’s a picture of some of the team laughing it up that I snapped at a Christmas dinner a few weeks ago:

What qualifications do you need?

  • Several years of full-time work experience as a developer. The more the better. The technologies we are working with are new, no one has many years of experience on them. Please see the tech stack below, but the main skill we need is someone who understands that building something simple is not easy. That the answer is not always adding features or doing more, that the solution can often be about doing less, better. This is the ideal job for the developer who has spent the last few years gaining skills in a team, and now wants to take on more responsibility - or for someone with leadership experience who wants to get his hands dirty and again feel the joy of creating in a small team

  • Be comfortable in English. All internal communication is in English. The team is very international, as are the partners and users. If you also speak other languages that is great. Abi is currently live in English, Spanish, French, German, and Croatian, with more coming in 2019. We want to amaze users everywhere.

  • A deep respect for privacy and data protection. Our users and doctors are entrusting us with their health questions, and our top priority is earning that trust. Privacy is NOT optional.

  • A desire to build for scale.

  • An understanding that building a simple-to-use, highly-reliable, global service is exceptionally complex. We put in the work to make life easy for and deserve the trust of our users, our doctors, and our partners.

  • Interest in the technology of messaging.

  • All experience recruiting, building, managing a dev team will also eventually be helpful, though right now the focus is on technical execution.

Why is this a great job?

If you want the chance to work on critical projects used around the world, to have a voice in designing complex systems, to have your ideas be valued, and to learn an exceptional amount in a very short period of time - all while having fun in a great team - then this is the place for you.

What are the tech requirements?

  • Good understanding of APIs, distributed systems, microservices, etc. Abi interfaces with many different systems.

  • You have built consumer-facing digital services.

  • AWS / Lamdba or similar serverless models

  • javascript / nodejs

  • You need to be comfortable in a linux environment / command line

  • Experience with different testing strategies and continuous integration.

  • Able to give and receiving rigorous code review

  • Good communication skills

  • Deep respect for security and privacy

  • Not hung up on any specific technology, but instead believe that the key is to use the right tool for the right job

  • You are motivated by the end product and user experience, rather than commited to any specific technology

  • Bonus points if you have familiarity with Stripe, and/or have experience in mobile app development.

  • Able to represent the business externally (speaking at events) and in conversations with clients and partners.

Who should not apply

Please do NOT apply if

  • You can not work full-time

  • You are looking for a boring 9-to-5 job where you don’t need to think much and can just punch the clock.

  • You can not legally work in Spain

Compensation / Benefits

  • We envision an annual salary of 55-70,000 Euro. The exact number will depend on your experience

  • Potential to earn equity in the business over time

  • Free, unlimited use of the Abi service for you and five family members or friends

  • Choose your own hardware

  • Permanent contract

  • 100% flexible hours and partially remote (1-2 days per week)

Other key points

Abi is a new company and until now the focus has been on building the initial MVP and then launching with the first customers. As the team grows you will be expected to - help us grow our engineering and company culture. This will include

  • a culture of shared learning and mentoring

  • defining the right technology for our mission

  • contributing to open source. See the our Github page

  • speaking at events / conferences. Our new office (see below) has perfect space for meetups and we plan to host a regular series of events around the technologies we use.

  • regularly contributing to our soon to be launching engineering blog

Logistics

  • currently Abi is located in their own office within a co-working space Eixample. It is very nice, but due to growth, in April the team will move to their own large office five minutes from Gràcia station. The office has terrace, kitchen, natural light, bike parking and shower, ping pong table, free coffee. The new space is ace.

  • flexible working hours

Ok, this is interesting, what is the hiring process?

  1. Please send a CV including a link to your Github profile or other public projects to me: freyfogle (at) gmail.com

  2. I will reply with a basic technical test that will take you about an hour to answer. No trick questions, and you can take as long as you need to do the test.

  3. If the test goes well, we will schedule some interviews in the Abi office. A chance for us to ask you questions, but also for you to ask the Abi team questions.

  4. Assuming both sides want to go forward we will schedule a second and final round of interviews in the Abi office.

  5. The next day we will take a decision and hopefully make you an offer.

In total we think the process should take two weeks or so, but of course it depends a bit on your availability. We want to move quickly, but only if we are sure you are a fit.

Some other questions you may have

I do not have a PhD in Computer Science. Do I qualify?

We care about what you can do, not how many years you spent at university.

Will this job prepare me for a management role?

Abi is growing quickly. There will be significant opportunities for growth for everyone. Right now we need people who can take responsibility for the product - ensuring that we deliver to our users and partners, but as the scope of the business grows we will welcome and reward individuals who want to take on more responsibility, be that in a leadership role or increased technical responsibility.

Can Abi get me a work permit? No, sorry, you need to be legally able to work in Spain.

Can I work remotely? No, we’re working very collaboratively right now, and that means being face-to-face with each other and the white board at least a few days/week. We may have fully remote roles in the future.

I don’t think it’s right for me just now, but Abi sounds great. How can I stay informed? Sure, you can follow @AbiGlobalHealth on twitter