compensation: $20-$26 per hour to start + bennies + luv
employment type: full-time
Life-affirming, warmhearted, wicked smart, fun-loving, goofball team of technology consulting geeks ISO business-partner-in-crime to make our adorable little family even bigger!
We enjoy:
- long walks between the network closet and the wall jack that stopped working (p.s. it's probably a bad patch cable but that's the last thing you test);
- ocean sunsets glimpsed through the client's windows as we realize it's 7:00 PM on a Friday and we won't make it to happy hour until the new VoIP VLAN is actually working;
- weekend backpacking (especially in areas where spotty cell coverage exists, in case we need to tether to our iPhones if the Emergency Line rings);
- new bonding adventures, like that time we couldn't figure out whether the problem was the L2TP-IPSec tunnel, the AWS VPC config, or good old Windows Server 2012r2 being a little bitch again ("do you remember how I was like, 'RTFM!' and you were like, 'nah I got this, just need to downgrade the firmware' and then I called overseas after-hours support and they *actually* picked up and were *actually* helpful?!? OMG that SUCKED I wanted to KILL YOU!!! co*cktail?")
- working from home in nothing but a button-down shirt for when the boss suddenly wants to videochat about the latest urgent thing that he's gonna forget about tomorrow
- exotic long-distance travel, except on the rush hour 101
- group intimacy. . . like staff meetings and client Quarterly Business Reviews. . .
Sounds like a match made in Cupertino? Read on!
ABOUT US
We're one of the oldest Mac-focused I.T. consulting firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. You'll be our tenth employee. We've been in business since 1998 or 2005, depending on when you start counting. We provide contract I.T. support to businesses of between 20 and 200 people, most of whose computer fleets are over 50% Mac, but some of whose are 99% Windows (blech, sadomasoch*sts). Most of our clients are fast-growth, venture-backed startups, so you'll get to see what that crazy world looks like, which yeah might include free lunch and beer.
Our relationships are our most valuable currency: relationships with our customers, partners, vendors, and most importantly, with each other. This human touch is inseparable from the services we provide, and our company is structured in an attempt to maximize the delight of every interaction. We are not your average I.T. support firm, and we are similarly looking for non-average partners! (top half of the bell curve, pleeeez)
We're a really tight team: we rely on each other for moral support, ask each other for help, teach each other what we know, support each other when life throws a suckerpunch, laugh at the mean names we invent for the clients we don't like, then feel guilty that we're being mean, then have a contest for coming up with the best name for someone else, god we suck.
Most of our clients are awesome and we go the extra mile for them, when we can, simply because we care and they rely on us and that's what prosocial primates do for each other, and it feels good when the I-made-a-difference-today-endorphins rush.
We will likely never become millionaires at this gig but we will certainly learn a ton by trying. We will never seek funding because if we grow too fast, we might stop having fun. If Louis C.K. offered us funding, however, that might be fun so we'd consider it.
This is not to say that we never get the Sunday evening blues, but by the time it's 11 a.m. on Monday, we're so busy we forgot.
Since we are a really small company, we can be kinda messy. 2016 is def the year we clean up our act with something we call SOPs, but still, many of our internal protocols are passed verbally to new employees like ancient lore -- not necessarily because they're not written down, but because what we wrote down last year is terribly out of date. Every few months, on a weekly staff call, we'll review the CURRENT state of some internal protocol because only half of us ever got the memo that never actually went out. If you can't embrace chaos and speak up when you need help, and then speak up three more times over the next hour because everybody was too busy to hear you the first time, you'll be utterly miserable here, and so will we.
If lemmings have leaders, ours is one of those egomaniacal small business owners who can't keep his personality quirks from polluting the work environment. For the most part that's okay, except for the fart jokes, and god forbid you're near when he lays a real one. Sometimes he publicly ridicules himself, like when writing job postings, hoping it'll garner sympathy from those whom he hopes to subjugate. He repeatedly asks everyone for their opinions on matters, either because he truly values team input or because he's indecisive and has low self-esteem, but thus far it hasn't gotten anyone fired, so we continue complying with the request.
[Editor's note: Prior paragraph unanimously approved by staff, or so they said.]
We're kinda weird, and we like it that way. Our clients seem to like us that way, too. If they don't, there's a hundred other really boring, yet somehow less professional I.T. consultancies they can hire. Have fun with that!
ABOUT THE GIG
We're not seeking the right candidate to fulfill a position; rather, we're seeking a position to fulfill the right candidate. Get it? That means you come first, and if we can wrap a profit-generating job around you, you're hired, because you will no doubt be an asset in whatever roles you inhabit.
We tend to groom senior-level consultants from within our own ranks, rather than hire them off the job market, for lots of reasons. So, if you are a senior-level I.T. engineer with a gazillion M$oft and Cisco certs, please bear in mind that you are a very unlikely candidate. And once you see the application procedure below, you'll understand why we call it our "hazing ritual."
Rather, we're seeking junior-to-midlevel I.T. support engineers, with a year or three of experience, who are eager to finally start having fun in I.T Land. In addition to demonstrable work experience and a vibrant geekheart, we only date candidates who are passionate about life, learning, and love for the people around them. Bring it.
Yes, we WILL hire a junior candidate if you meet the requirements below. We actually LOVE junior candidates, so please apply!
Depending on your skill set and passions, you'll probably be working onsite daily at our clients' offices around the Bay Area, trying to figure out why it still doesn't work after they turned it off and turned it back on. You'll be their first line of tech support, helping with what you can, researching what you can't, and reaching out to the rest of our team in our private company chatroom when you just have no clue.
This is a trial-by-fire kind of gig, a dive-into-the-deep-end-and-learn-to-swim scenario. If you learn fast, have mighty Google Fu, can smile warmly even at serial killers, and sincerely give a s**t about people in the world, you'll probably ace it.
Sometimes our clients won't have anything for you to do, in which case you *might* be working from home in whatever state of dress you most prefer -- just, please, clean it up for the occasional videoconference. During those times, you'll turn your attention to our clients' remote needs. You'll ensure that phone calls get answered within two rings, client emails don't go ignored, and customers don't accuse us of being flakes because nobody told them that their new reactor core was backordered and we wouldn't be making progress on their widescreen-plasma-nuclear-starship gizmo for at least another two weeks.
We'll need you to catch balls before they drop, help our Help Desk peeps not have a heart attack when there are three calls on hold, and give our clients the impression that we are a dashboard-run, stable organization with lots of manpower to spare for their every whim. (haha)
Sometimes it'll be fun and glamorous and you'll be learning how all that magical technical stuff works under the hood.
Sometimes it'll be totally boring, like sitting on hold to AT&T to find out how many minutes of phone calls a client's staff made last month so we can price a better phone system for them. . .
. . . or finding the best prices for RAM upgrades for 12 different machine models. . .
. . . or calling six distributors who don't respond to emails to get the best price on something for which you only have a SKU number. . .
We promise not to intentionally abuse you. Our spirit of camaraderie, and our capitalist founder's socialist work ethic (wha????) says that sometimes, everyone has to take out the trash for the good of humanity. If we give you a lovely job to do, we'll probably apologize in advance. . . but it's still yours, and we're glad you're here to save us from the hell, because we have other hells to attend to.
Sometimes you'll have so many urgent things on your to-do list that you will have a hard time determining what to do first. One day you'll be stressed out beyond belief and discouraged; the next day you'll easily tackle a seemingly insurmountable problem and feel like a million bucks and the clients will literally prostrate themselves to you (serious) like you were a deity; the next day you'll be so stressed out again that you won't be able to remember what you did between noon and 4 PM but the boss will be wanting your timesheet, like, yesterday. (He's a f**king slavedriver, BTW, don't apply.)
Every day, our whole team will depend upon you to give that Warm Fuzzy Feeling™ so clients will keep working with us and pass along referrals. . . or at least not rip us a new one on Yelp.
If everything works out, this position will eventually graduate into more senior technical, operations, or account management positions; or else it could prepare you for those with another company.
However, if we hire you in the first place, no doubt we'll want you to stay forever. . . and hopefully, once you see how much better American life is when you work for a company you love with colleagues who adore you and clients who appreciate you, you'll be our workplace cuddlebuddy for life.
ALL THE COMPUTER THINGS
We were Mac-centric wayyyyy before they were cool, and hated Windows way back when hating Windows made you a, um, Mac user. However, we have learned to consult on much more than Macs: business technology strategy, advanced networking, AWS, SaaS apps, VoIP, and. . . yes. . . even Windows.
Nobody on our staff knows how to do all of this; that's one reason we so highly stress team values and collaboration. Although your position will likely be serving Mac end-users on the front lines (i.e. at their desks), you'd better be eager to learn anything and everything you possibly can about any and every technology you've never heard of before.
(p.s. they're still better than Windows)
WHO WE HOPE YOU ARE
We're seeking someone who gets RAW PLEASURE from helping people in any way s/he possibly can, and "Hey I really enjoy technology so can I make a job out of helping people with technology and I might even ENJOY IT and they'll APPRECIATE ME??!? RAD!!!!!"
HARD REQUIREMENTS
We won't interview you unless you:
- Have at least 1 year of I.T. support work experience
- Have demonstrable Mac aptitude (we will grill you during the interviews)
- Have many years of demonstrable geekitude that you could enthusiastically wax on about to even your grandmother, and even though she has no idea what you're talking about she'll listen enthusiastically because, y'know, she's your gramma
- Have a vehicle and a license, because you'll need 'em to get to clients
- Be able to work 9 AM-6 PM San Francisco time
- Have a quiet home environment from which you can work efficiently with decent broadband (we're a virtual company, and you won't always be working onsite)
- Have a current U.S. work authorization
SOFT REQUIREMENTS
"Soft" doesn't mean these are less important or optional; on the contrary, if you qualify for the above, we are less interested in your specific technical skills than in who you are. We figure that technical skills are teachable, but character takes many lifetimes. That's why the following list of requirements is much longer:
- Care. About your loved ones, colleagues, customers, community, death row offenders, little puppy dogs, that stinky guy on the BART. Give a s**t.
- Want to make a positive difference during your time on Earth.
- Love learning.
- Have a reading habit and an aptitude for communicating in writing. (And what better way to prove this than in the application you're about to write for us? Bueller?)
- Spell-f**king-check your s**t.
- Be a natural optimist.
- Laugh a lot.
- Know a bunch of jokes by heart.
- Intuitively smell the difference between good and FANTASTIC customer service, and decry the former with a passion reserved only for the kind of Apple enthusiasts who save the packaging.
- Love learning!
- Be able to juggle a to-do list longer than Tolstoy's oeuvre.
- Enjoy creating order out of chaos.
- When you see things being done inefficiently, fix first, complain second.
- Get excited when total strangers ask you for directions on the street.
- Barf a little in your mouth at things like http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
- Notice that we used the word oeuvre. And how funny it looks.
- LURV learning!
- Be ready to shamelessly embrace that you are a total nerd, and both chicks and dudes and everyone else think you are a sex god/dess because of it, and that it totally helps your OKC profile.
- Laugh a lot. Know a bunch of jokes by heart.
- Ummm. . . something about learning. . . having deja vu here. . . what was it?
- Find this job posting funny [sic.]
HOW MUCH ARE YOU GOING TO GET PAID?
We are seeking candidates in the junior-to-midlevel ranges, and are more interested in finding our new BFF than in how much s/he will be paid. That said, we're not made of money; you'll probably start between $20-$26 per hour. But have cheer: people rarely go their first three months around here without a raise, if they make it that long.
Also included: medical/dental coverage, Internet stipend for your "home office," a company iPhone if you don't want to use your own, and later in 2016, a matching 401(k) plan. Oh, and lots of bad jokes that'll nevertheless make you laugh till you burp.
WHERE AND WHEN AND HOW DO I APPLY?
We won't begin interviewing candidates until the end of the first week of May, and our hazing ritual, um I mean interview process, usually takes a couple weeks. So please, take your time so that your application really represents who you are and why we would love having you aboard!
FOLLOW THE BELOW INSTRUCTIONS METICULOUSLY AND CHECK FOR COMPLETION BEFORE SENDING. If you can't grok that sentence, which is in all caps and thus contains the implicit threat that we will delete your application immediately if you ignore it (true), then please don't bother wasting your time. We'll only feel bad that you'll never hear back from us, and so will you. Of course, if you are a person who ignored that sentence, then you're probably ignoring all of this too and your application will be deleted immediately, oh well.
If you're a senior-level I.T. engineer, please reread the section above about how we don't hire senior-level I.T. engineers. If you skipped that section and went straight down to these application procedures, then you precisely embody the reasons we don't hire senior-level I.T. engineers and we implore you not to apply, for the sake of your precious time more than ours.
Okay, here goes:Please e-mail the following in PDF format.
1. Send us a love letter letting us know who you are and why you want this job.
2. Describe the random act of lovingkindness that you most like to practice.
3. Tell us about your love of learning.
4. Do you want humanity to live forever? Why or why not?
5. Describe the best prank you ever pulled.
6. What technology-related blogs, podcasts, tweets or websites do you follow? Do you participate in any online technology-related communities?
7. How do you keep your technology skills current?
8. What are your favorite and least favorite tech products, and why?
9. You type https://www.apple.com into your computer's web browser. Draw an infographic of the worldwide DNS system that explains how your computer recursively finds the IP address for https://www.apple.com. Make sure to depict your own computer, your network provider's DNS server(s), the root DNS servers, and the TLD zone files, in addition to any other objects required to answer the question. DO NOT cut and paste a diagram you find elsewhere: draw it yourself.
10. Why is this funny? (double points if you can explain how many jokes are in here. . . and if you don't find it funny, pretend you do):
A TCP packet walks into a bar, and says to the barman "Hello, I'd like a beer."
The barman replies "Hello, you'd like a beer?"
"Yes," replies the TCP packet, "I'd like a beer."
I'd tell you my UDP packet joke, but I'm not sure you'd get it.
11. Do NOT send us a resume at this time. We don't want our first impression of your humanity to be polluted with irrelevant details. We won't read it, and we will not consider the rest of the beautiful prose you spent so much time crafting with care.
12. Please e-mail the above in PDF format. (deja vu? could this detail possibly be important?)
CIAO
We are an equal opportunity employer and look forward to considering all qualified, kick-assin' applicants. Good luck in your search!
