Interesting Data Gigs by Marcos Ortiz
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Interesting Data Gigs # 43: Senior Platform Engineer at Aha!

Interesting Data Gigs # 43: Senior Platform Engineer at Aha!

A highly profitable, bootstrapped and remote-first Centaur

Marcos Ortiz
June 04, 2023

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Hello, Data Geek.

Aha! 10th anniversary

Today, I wanted to share an open position inside a company I’ve followed for a long time: Aha!, an organization that is an outlier in many ways.

Let me explain why it’s an outlier and why you should consider being part of it.

First things, first: What is Aha!

I will use the same words they use to describe what is Aha!:

Aha! is the world's #1 product development software. We started with a simple idea — to build a company that customers and employees would love.

Aha! is a very different type of high-growth SaaS company. We are self-funded, fully remote, and have no sales team.

And we are highly profitable — surpassing $100M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in early 2022. We aspire for a world of lovable software built by happy teams. Today more than 700,000+ product builders at many of the world's best-known companies trust our software to build a better future.

Our vision has never wavered. We believe that the companies that succeed in today's dynamic markets are the ones that lead with a bold mission and connect strategy to their work. And the most value comes when teams work together. This takes discipline and requires a goal-first approach, thoughtful prioritization, and cross-functional planning. Our products, services, and partners help companies transform old, inefficient ways of innovating into a fresh new approach.

Everyone enjoys getting meaningful work done. We want you to (re)discover your joy for work — that sense of confidence, impact, and swagger that makes you say, “I’ve got this.” Aha! helps teams be their best and be happy.

Aha!

Here you will find a lot of hints why Aha! is an outlier:

First: it was bootstrapped by Brian de Haaff and Dr. Chris Waters 10 years ago
Second: it has surpassed the incredible mark of $100 Million in Annual Recurring Revenue, a mystical creature that Bessemer Ventures Partners calls a Centaur. But for Aha! is even more impressive because they didn’t use any outside funding for this and without a sales team.
And Third: They have been a champion of remote work since the start of the company

Briand and Chris have built an impressive team who develops great products used by 700k around the globe.

And the open role is a critical role to support the growth of the organization. It’s called Senior Platform Engineer, and it’s focused on North America or South America based people.

Let’s concentrate on that now

Let’s dissect the job description

If we read very closely the description of the role, we will find some key aspects of it:

Aha! is a Ruby on Rails shop that has embraced the Monolith approach. So, you need to have experience with it
They use Amazon Web Services, Terraform, and more specifically Elastic Container Service (ECS). If you have worked with Kubernetes at scale, this could be very helpful for your job application

More importantly: they started a movement called “The Responsive Method”, a radical approach to serving customers instantly. This is why they don’t use Sales people for it: every member of the team embraces 8 key values for it.

I assume that many people want to work at Aha! So I will share some ideas on how to approach this application.

Let’s discuss 3 ideas on how to approach this job application (THE REAL MEAT)

Idea # 1: Read Lovability book by Brian

If you want to be part of this team, reading this book must be a requirement.

Idea # 2: Read the Aha! Engineering blog

There are a lot of great blog posts there, especially if you will be applying as an Engineer.

Some of my favorite ones are:

Idea #3: Bring the Aha! team inside the AWS Graviton train

If you have followed me for a while, you must know that I’m writing another newsletter focused on AWS Graviton, the custom Arm-based processor built by Annapurna Labs for Amazon, which provides an incredible combination of cost-cutting and performance gains.

Ruby on amr64 has built an amazing story for performance, and Ruby on Graviton has not been the exception. I will share some great resources that will help you to share more ideas with the team in the job application: