Status on Part-Time Support Rep Position

Hey all, for those of you interested in the support rep position, just a quick status update.

We received just shy of 200 applications, so we’re still working through the first phase.  We’ll be finished with the first phase by the end of the day on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, if you hear from us, that means you’ll move on to Phase Two :)

If you don’t hear from us, it means you didn’t make the cut :(

Our plan is to have about 20% of the candidate pool move to Phase Two.

The applications have been great, and it’s been fun getting to know some of you YNABers a bit better.  You’re voracious readers, and have added a lot of books to my “To Read” list!

We’re Hiring Another Part-Time Support Rep. Are You It?

I keep thinking our hiring will slow down, and then find myself writing another job posting.  This one is for a front line Defender of the YNAB Brand—a support rep.

What this job would look like:

  • You would set your own schedule, but you’d need to stick to something fairly regular.  So if you told us you planned on knocking out some cases for a few hours on a Saturday morning, we’d plan on you doing just that.
  • You care about the single customer.
  • You know that speed of response is the number one driver of customer satisfaction and that,
  • Accuracy of response is a close second.
  • You’d track your time and email me your hours on a monthly basis.  I’d cut you a check each month.
  • You’d be a 1099 contractor, responsible for your own internet, working space (probably at home, but you could do the work wherever you preferred), computer, etc.
  • The pay would be $10-$15 per hour, depending on your experience.
  • We’re looking at about 20 hours per week, with a bias toward weekend hours.
  • The hours would perhaps ebb and flow, where some weeks were very busy (new years is always busy, where December is not).
  • Your technical skills would definitely need to be up to snuff.  You know your way around computers, basically forward and backward, can troubleshoot stuff with some Google searches, and can explain things for people that aren’t as skilled as you, so they can feel victorious :)
  • Your location, country-wise can be totally flexible.  Your English needs to be superb, but accents are totally fine!

How YNAB works

  • We collaborate using email, Basecamp, Google Hangouts, Skype, and HipChat.  Even a real phone on occasion.
  • We do meetups in person every 18 months or so.  The next one is in a few weeks, where we’ll be doing some survival training out in the California desert, and then staying in a hotel at night. Yes, those two can coexist.  We may take surfing lessons while we’re there.
  • We’re profitable, and in this for the long haul, boostrapped initially from $63 of AdWords spending back in 2004.
  • We don’t track vacation or sick days. We hire people that would never abuse that situation.
  • Our number one growth driver is word of mouth.
  • We don’t work during the week surrounding Christmas.
  • We give our team members birthday presents :)

How to Apply (Application DEADLINE is April 30)

  1. Everything should go to: YNAB+YNAB0518@applications.recruiterbox.com
  2. Send us your resume as a PDF.
  3. Send us a really interesting/compelling cover letter that answers, at a minimum:
    1. Why you would make a great YNAB Support rep.
    2. What prior tech support experience you’ve had.
    3. The book you’re currently reading, why you’re reading that book, and what you’ve learned so far from it.
  4. Share a positive customer service experience where you were the customer.  What made the experience positive?
  5. Respond to the following support case:  ”Hey, I bought YNAB about two weeks ago, and it’s just not working out.  Could I please have a refund?”  (Bear in mind that since we offer a 34-day free trial, our stated policy on refunds is that we don’t provide them.)
  6. Respond to the following support case: “We are trying to install YNAB on a 2nd computer in our home and I can’t find the right activation key for it. The one I’m using isn’t working.  Are we not allowed to install YNAB on another computer? And if we are, how can I get the key to activate it?”
  7. Respond to the following support case: “I must say that I’m pretty frustrated at this point.  I just purchased YNAB and spent several hours trying to import transactions from the last 6 years into YNAB.  And now the program that I just paid $60 for is running super slow.  To top it all off, I just found out that YNAB doesn’t automatically connect to my banks and download transactions for me going forward!  Why would a financial program like yours NOT do this automatically??  I’m not sure I can spend the time manually entering transactions every day and would like to ask for a refund.”
  8. Respond to the following support case: “I can’t get Cloud Sync to work for the life of me. I have YNAB installed on two computers and I have an Android phone with the YNAB app.  On my mobile app it just says “Woops! we couldn’t find any budget set up for Cloud Sync…”  And the YNAB app on my computers are definitely NOT showing the same budget files. Please help!”

 

We’re hiring! Do you want to teach YNAB?

UPDATE 2/22/13:  Applications are no longer being accepted for this position.

We’d like you to help us teach YNAB!  We are looking for an additional teacher to run our live, online classes.

You’re qualified if:

  • You love teaching and helping people learn.   You enjoy breaking down complicated problems so people who are struggling can understand them easily.
  • Not only do you love teaching, but you have a background in education. Preferably you’re a trained or certified teacher.  It’s a bonus if you’ve had experience teaching online, but not a deal breaker if you haven’t.
  • You use YNAB and know it very well.  You’re a YNAB success story.
  • You enjoy collaborating with other educators.  You can give constructive feedback and embrace it to improve your own skills.
  • You know your way around a computer.  Since you’ll be teaching online, you’ll need to understand how to navigate and access information from different programs behind the scenes.
  • You can multi-task and don’t mind being put on the spot.  Teaching a live online class requires running a web conference and  teaching at the same time–all while being asked multiple questions about budgeting and YNAB.  What we’re saying is, you’ll need to be quick on your feet and have fun doing it!
  • You can work from home (or anywhere), as long as you have  a fast, broadband connection.
  • You are available to teach some evenings and some weekends.  That’s when our customers are most available to attend classes.
  • You run YNAB on your mobile device.  (You’ll need to display that in class.)
  • You can show empathy.
  • You’re friendly, courteous, kind, cheerful, creative, flexible and passionate (did we mention passionate about teaching and about YNAB?).

Hours
Hours will vary depending on how busy we are and how many classes we are running.  It could be as few as 2 hours a week, or as many as 10-15.

Pay
Pay will be determined based on experience. However, we like to hire awesome people and pay them well. :)

How to Apply
Please include a cover letter that explains:

  1. Why do you want to help teach people about YNAB?
  2. Tell us about a great teacher you’ve had and what made him or her so great.
  3. Finally, we’d like to see you teach, so please create three screencast videos demonstrating on the screen how you would use YNAB 4 to answer each of these questions.

Please use jing which can be downloaded for free at:
http://www.techsmith.com/jing/
1. Why doesn’t my available to budget number match my checking account balance?

2. How do I handle savings in YNAB?  I’m afraid I’ll spend that money on groceries so I don’t really want it in my budget. What should I do?

3. Can I fill out the budget even though my checks haven’t arrived yet? I’d rather budget for the whole month at once.

Send your application to jobs@youneedabudget.com.  Make sure you include “I want to teach YNAB!” in the subject of the email, or else we won’t see it or read it.  That would be sad.

We look forward to hearing from you!

YNAB is Hiring a Quality Assurance Team Member (Part-Time) UPDATE: This position has been filled.

UPDATE (11/5/12): This position has been filled!  We were flooded with applications (just over 100), so it was a very tough call.  Thanks to all who applied!

We’re on a hiring blitz, of sorts.

As the popularity of YNAB grows, so also grows our need to have a top-notch quality assurance process.  That is where you come in.

You Would be:

  • Writing functional tests for the mobile and desktop platforms.
  • Executing those tests on the various platforms.
  • Doing exploratory testing.

You’re Who We’re Looking for if you:

  • Are detail-oriented, process-driven (slightly OCD?) person who will test, test, and re-test our desktop, iPhone, and Android software.
  • Have formal testing experience.
  • Have access to a variety of platforms (Windows, Mac, iOS and Android)
  • Are available part-time (this is not a full-time position).
  • Work well in a remote environment. YNAB has no central hub. The most people we have in any state is two (Maine, and Utah).  You do not need to be US-based.
  • Thrive on instructions like, “We need to formalize our QA process around each release candidate of our software. Any suggestions?”
  • Have excellent written and spoken English (accents are fine!)
  • Bonus Points: You use and love YNAB.
  • Double Bonus Points: You’ve found a few bugs in YNAB ;)

Details:

  • Compensation would be hourly and based on your experience.
  • This would be a part-time position, as an independent contractor.
  • You would set your own schedule, hours, etc.
  • You would provide your own equipment (some exceptions to this would be if we needed testing on a particular device for some future efforts).

To Apply:

  • Your cover letter can be your email. No need to send something separate.
  • Send your resume in PDF form.
  • Include “QA Superstar” in the subject line of your email. If you don’t, we won’t read your email.
  • Applications should go to: qa092012@youneedabudget.com
  • Also, please complete the following two questions:
  1. Please report on a bug you’ve found in the latest version of YNAB. Write it up the same way you’d write up a bug if you were a member of the team.
  2. What is one of your favorite non-fiction books? What did you learn from it?

YNAB is Hiring a Full-Time Android Contractor

About Us:

We create beautiful personal finance software that’s changing how people think about their money. Our software is named “You Need a Budget”, but everyone just calls it “YNAB”. For years now, lots of people have been buying YNAB and then telling their friends how awesome it is. (Google us and you’ll see.) We’ve got an Android app that is a complement to our desktop software. It is very highly rated and consistently performs very well on the Android Marketplace, but we want to make it even better. That’s where you come in!

About You:

You’re an experienced Android developer who would like to work with us on a 40 hours/week contract basis.

You would be:

  • Working with an existing, well-architected, codebase
  • Helping us get to feature parity with our iPhone offering and
  • Creating new features as needed

You’re the one we’re looking for if you:

  • Are a top-notch Android developer who will thrive in a small team.
  • Have experience working in version control (Git, Mercurial, etc).
  • Have excellent debugging skills
  • Have great Object Oriented design and architecture skills.
  • Write code that is easy for other programmers to understand and use
  • Use descriptive variable names in your code
  • Have excellent spoken and written English (we’re an international team, so accents are fine!)
  • You’re self motivated and thrive with directions like:
    • “This part of the program is too slow, and these are the places that might be good to start looking.”
    • “This component needs to be rearchitected to allow for X. How do you think we should do it?”

If that sounds like your ideal environment, keep reading.

Major-Triple-Gold-Star Bonus points if:
You already use and love YNAB

Location:

Remote. The YNAB team is located in Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Utah, Switzerland, Italy, (sometimes Texas), Australia, the UK, Canada, California, and Kentucky. You’ll do well if you get your best work done without office distractions :)

To apply:

  • Your cover letter can be your email. No need to send something separate.
  • Send your resume in PDF form.
  • Please include links to Android apps you’ve built, and describe your role in building those apps.
  • Include “DROID DEV” in the subject line of your email. If you don’t, we won’t read your email.
  • Applications should go to: droiddev092012@youneedabudget.com
  • Also, please complete the following two questions. This shouldn’t take you very long, and could save us all a great deal of time in the long run.

1) Write a function “count” that returns a string containing every number from 0 to the number passed in.

So, when I call count like so:

count(10);
//It should return the following string:
“0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10”
 public static String count(long toNumber)
 {
   //Your code goes here
 }

Note: There are no tricks here, and I don’t care about efficiency of the code. We estimate this will take you less than 2 minutes. In other words, don’t over think this. If you’re surprised we’re asking such an easy question, good. :)

2) Given the following function “DoStuff”:

public static String DoStuff(int count) {

        String retVal = "";
        
        for(int x=0; x<=count; ++x) {
            retVal += "A";
            if (x == 3) {
                retVal += DoStuff(count);
            }
        }
        return retVal;
}

Describe what the following function call will do:

DoStuff(10);

Hint: Unlike question 1, this is a trick question. ;)

(UPDATED) We’re Looking for a Full-Time Android Contractor

Update: This position has been filled!

About Us:

We create beautiful personal finance software that’s changing how people think about their money. Our software is named “You Need a Budget”, but everyone just calls it “YNAB”. For years now, lots of people have been buying YNAB and then telling their friends how awesome it is. (Google us and you’ll see.) We’ve got an Android app that is a complement to our desktop software. It is very highly rated and consistently performs very well on the Android Marketplace, but we want to make it even better. That’s where you come in!

About You:

You’re an experienced Android developer who would like to work with us on a 40 hours/week contract basis. Ideally you’d like to keep working with us on a reduced basis after the initial project is complete.

You would be:

  • Working with an existing, well-architected, codebase
  • Helping us get to feature parity with our iPhone offering and
  • Creating new features as needed

You’re the one we’re looking for if you:

  • Are a top-notch Android developer who will thrive in a small team.
  • Have experience working in version control (Git, Mercurial, etc).
  • Have excellent debugging skills
  • Have great Object Oriented design and architecture skills.
  • Write code that is easy for other programmers to understand and use
  • Use descriptive variable names in your code
  • Have excellent spoken and written English (we’re an international team, so accents are fine!)
  • You’re self motivated and thrive with directions like:
    • “This part of the program is too slow, and these are the places that might be good to start looking.”
    • “This component needs to be rearchitected to allow for X. How do you think we should do it?”

If that sounds like your ideal environment, keep reading.

Major-Triple-Gold-Star Bonus points if:
You already use and love YNAB

Location:

Remote. The YNAB team is located in Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Utah, Switzerland, Italy, (sometimes Texas), Australia, the UK, Canada, California, Kentucky, and Washington. You’ll do well if you get your best work done without office distractions :)

To apply:

  • Your cover letter can be your email. No need to send something separate.
  • Send your resume in PDF form.
  • Please include links to Android apps you’ve built, and describe your role in building those apps.
  • Include “TOP NOTCH” in the subject line of your email. If you don’t, we won’t read your email.
  • Applications should go to: jobs@youneedabudget.com
  • Also, please complete the following two questions. This shouldn’t take you very long, and could save us all a great deal of time in the long run.

1) Write a function “count” that returns a string containing every number from 0 to the number passed in.

So, when I call count like so:

count(10);
//It should return the following string:
“0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10”
 public static String count(long toNumber)
 {
   //Your code goes here
 }

Note: There are no tricks here, and I don’t care about efficiency of the code. We estimate this will take you less than 2 minutes. In other words, don’t over think this. If you’re surprised we’re asking such an easy question, good. :)

2) Given the following function “DoStuff”:

public static String DoStuff(int count)
{
  String retVal = "";
  for(int x=0; x

Describe what the following function call will do:

DoStuff(10);

Hint: Unlike question 1, this is a trick question. ;)

Are You a Gifted Teacher? We'd Like to Hire You to Teach YNAB.

We’d like you to help us teach people about YNAB! We are looking for an additional teacher to help teach our live online classes.

You’re qualified if:

- You love teaching and helping people learn. You enjoy breaking down complicated problems so people who are struggling can easily understand them.

- Not only do you love teaching, but you have a background in education, and preferably you’re a trained or certified teacher. It’s a bonus if you’ve had experience teaching online, but not a deal breaker if you haven’t.

- You use YNAB. You love YNAB. You’re a YNAB success story. If YNAB sold t-shirts, you’d have one.

- You enjoy collaborating with other educators. You give constructive feedback and gladly receive it to improve your own skills.

- You know your way around a computer. Since you’ll be teaching online, you’ll need to understand how to navigate and access information from different programs behind the scenes.

- You can multi-task (mentally, and with the computer). You don’t mind being put on the spot. Teaching a live online class requires running a web conference, teaching, keeping an eye on attentiveness, the clock, questions rolling in, etc.—all at the same time. You’ll need to be quick on your feet and have fun doing it!

- You can work from home (or anywhere), with a fast, broadband connection.

- You’re available to teach some evenings and some weekends. That’s when our customers are most available to attend classes.

- You can show empathy.

- You’re friendly, courteous, kind, cheerful, creative, flexible and passionate (did we mention being passionate about teaching and about YNAB?).

How to Apply

Please include a cover letter that explains:

Why do you want to help teach people about YNAB?

  1. Tell us about your experience as a teacher.
  2. Tell us about a great teacher you’ve had and what made him or her so great.

Also, we’d like to see you teach! Please create three screencast videos demonstrating how you would use YNAB 3 to answer each of these questions.

  1. Why doesn’t my available to budget number match my checking account balance?
  2. How do I handle savings in YNAB? I’m afraid I’ll spend that money on groceries so I don’t really want it in my budget. What should I do?
  3. Can I fill out the budget even though my checks haven’t arrived yet? I’d rather budget for the whole month at once.
  4. Please use jing to create your recordings, which is a free download.

    Please send your application to teachingjob@youneedabudget.com and include the phrase “Teaching Position” in the subject line. If it doesn’t have that phrase, we won’t see it, and won’t be able to read it :(