Rails Engineer III

HopSkipDrive’s mission is to create opportunity for all through mobility. Our innovative, supplemental school transportation solutions are used by over 600 school districts, charter schools, nonprofits, government agencies, as well as busy families to safely and reliably get kids where they need to go.

Student transportation is the largest mass transit system in the U.S. The way kids get to and from school has a direct impact on our kids, families, schools and communities. While school districts spend $28 billion annually on transportation, only 30% of kids get to school on a bus. The current system can no longer meet all the transportation needs of our districts, schools and families — and its shortcomings are causing inequities in educational access that are affecting the welfare of millions of kids each day.

HopSkipDrive is taking a different approach to arranging safe, reliable school transportation that meets needs that aren’t being addressed by the current system, helping to fill gaps and supplement the student transportation options available. We create personalized transportation solutions for the one to the many, and everything in between.

We’re a company with heart

Our partnerships with school districts, child welfare agencies and nonprofits ensure equitable educational access for the most vulnerable populations, including youth in foster care, children experiencing homelessness and students with disabilities. 

We understand that the difference between struggle and success can sometimes be as simple as the ability to show up, which is why we’re on a mission to use innovative technology — coupled with operational expertise and new ways of thinking — to help kids reach their full potential by providing a safe, dependable way to get them where they are going.

We’re an awesome place to work

Our company culture has been well-recognized — HopSkipDrive has been named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list, as well as Best Places to Work lists from Built In LA, Comparably, Inc., and the Los Angeles Business Journal. Comparably also named us a Best Company for Professional Development, as well as to its Best CEO and Best CEOs for Women lists.

We’re growing rapidly

Founded by three moms as a solution to their own transportation challenges, we now operate across over 13 states across the country. We continue to expand at a rapid pace, making the Inc. 5000 list four times, as well as the Deloitte 500 Fast-Growing Technology list. HopSkipDrive has raised $100M in funding to date.

A Rails Engineer III will enter this level capable of taking well-defined tasks and completing them in a way that is considered by the team to be high-quality with supervision from more senior team members. The progress through this level is focused on taking tasks of increasing complexity, scope and importance and completing them with very high quality with a lessening need for manager/tech lead oversight.

This level is the bread-and-butter level of engineering growth. Engineers at this level should be focused on becoming great engineers, learning how to set high quality bars for their work without sacrificing productivity. All engineers at and above this level should religiously follow stated best practices for the team without excessive hand holding. Engineers at this level will continue to make mistakes, but should be improving the speed at which they learn from these mistakes. By the time an engineer II is ready to be promoted they will have focused on some technology as their expertise and become capable of mentoring interns and new engineers in these areas. They will start to participate more in the technical design process, often with guidance from senior engineers.

Engineers at this level are assumed to be constantly making steady progress on tasks that are assigned to them and know when to ask for help when they are blocked. They can own their independent small-to-medium features all the way through from technical design to launch. They are capable of prioritizing the work in front of them and able to make forward progress, avoiding the temptation to focus on unimportant details or excessive bikeshedding.

The impact at this level is focused on task completion and depth in a small area of the code base. Engineers at this level should be capable of taking responsibility for their code during releases as well as on-call support for simple incidents in areas that they are not always familiar with.

They communicate well and are capable of delivering feedback to peers and their manager. When given a task with unclear requirements they know how to ask for clarification, and ensure that all assumptions are vetted before work starts to reduce the need for re-work. They understand how their work fits into the larger picture for their team, and use this to identify conflicting requirements to their tech lead and product manager. An important focus of this level is developing empathy for the users of their software, whether they be internal employees, customers, or other developers on the team. A team member at this level is seeking out the context they need to understand the why of a particular feature and nurturing this empathy via that understanding.

Above all, they want to build something that fundamentally improves the lives of families.

We want you to be an owner in our company and share in executing our vision, so every full-time employee has equity. In addition, we offer competitive market comp, flexible vacation, FSA, medical, dental and vision, 401(k), and an opportunity to work for a uniquely positioned, VC-backed company in a hugely attractive space with significant upside potential. HopSkipDrive is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The salary range for this role is $130,000 to $150,000 year.  Final compensation for this role will be determined by several factors such as a candidate’s relevant work experience, skill set and specific work location. The total compensation package for this role also includes equity stock options

HopSkipDrive is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected class. HopSkipDrive is also proud to operate as a drug-free workplace.