SparkFun Electronics is an online shop for the do-it-yourself electronics enthusiast that operates out of a purpose-built 80,000 sqft office in Boulder, CO. Our customers include inventors, artists, students, hobbyists, and just plain curious individuals looking for some fun tinkering with electronics.
SparkFun is also very committed to bringing electronics education into the mainstream by curating free educational materials and working with schools and institutions around the country to bring electronics into the classroom. Lastly, SparkFun is a staunch advocate of the open source movement, most notably being a leader in Open Source Hardware.
SparkFun is a growing company with $32 million in sales in 2014. Having never taken any venture capital, SparkFun grew to its current state entirely on its own ability to generate revenue. This affords SparkFun a high degree of autonomy and independence which fosters a startup-like environment in a well-established medium-sized company.
SparkFun's Information Technology department is responsible for the continuous development, maintenance, and security of all SparkFun web properties. This includes the primary ecommerce website (sparkfun.com) and the primary educational resources website (learn.sparkfun.com). Also included is Sparkle, SparkFun's custom-built ERP system which is used to manage all content on the aforementioned web properties as well as order processing, customer management, shipping, inventory controls, manufacturing, etc.
IT is also generally responsible for all server, network, computer, and software needs for the organization as a whole. This includes building and maintaining the campus network, deploying computers, printers, phones, and mobile devices to all departments, guiding the software selection and implementation process, and generally facilitating the flow of information throughout the company.
Development at SparkFun reflects the exploratory do-it-yourself culture of the entire company. All developers take part in fixing small bugs and developing larger projects, as well as reviewing one another's code. Continuous improvement of the tool set provided to all users is emphasized as well as continuous improvement to the development process itself. Developers are encouraged to explore parts of the code base and discuss what projects inspire them.
Assuming developers work best when genuinely inspired both developer inspiration and relative priority are used to determine what gets worked on and when. Collaborative development is highly encouraged and all developers have ample opportunities to work together on small, informal dev teams focusing on one project, feature, or subsystem.
- Experience developing object-oriented PHP
- Experience working with modern HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Experience working with relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL
- General understanding of the MVC software architecture
- Experience working with modern version control systems such as Git
- Competence working in a Unix-based environment
- Working knowledge of jQuery and Bootstrap
- Working knowledge of caching systems such as Memcache or Redis
- Working knowledge of NoSQL databases such as MongoDB
- A visible public track record of contributions to open source
- An eye for designing intuitive user interfaces
Note: all benefits become available after an initial on-boarding period of six weeks.
- Health, dental, and disability insurance (with FSA and HSA options)
- 401k matching up to 5%
- Eco pass
- Full on-site gym
- 2 weeks paid vacation to start, 3 weeks after one full year of employment
- $1000/year continuing education/professional development fund
- $25/month gym/massage benefit
Note: some perks only become available after an initial on-boarding period of six weeks.
- Flex time – days/hours in the office can be a compromise between work life and home life
- Liberal work from home / work remote policy (note: not interested in permanent remote employees for this position)
- Free and/or deeply discounted access to tools, parts, and education to tinker with electronics and physical computing
- Frequent Lunch and Learns – presentations by other employees and special guests on all manner of topics (often catered)
- Occasional opportunities for travel to technical conferences and other professional development opportunities
- Dog-friendly workplace