Jobs at Specno

Why start by telling you this?

At Specno things happen fast. In the last 2 years we went from a 2 person Silicon Valley style garage startup to a +20 person team. Within 6 months of starting most of our people are running their own projects, managing the new intakes, getting opportunities to do things way beyond what the normal person is capable of doing at that stage in their career.

This growth doesn’t come easy. We hire the best, and give them the support and context needed for them to succeed at whatever is in their path. High-performance people thrive in this environment, they are surrounded by and learning from other high-performers, everyone pushing each other to be the best, and things get done.

How do we manage this?

We have taken the best parts of Google, Valve, and Netflix to forge a culture that attracts and retains the best, and scares off the rest. From Google we have adopted their ethos of having a happy, healthy and connected workspace - our office culture is unrivaled. From Valve we have adopted the idea that no one has a fixed role, and you can move yourself to any area that creates the most value - we are all building this company and all have the power to influence what it becomes. From Netflix we have adopted many of the values and policy styles to allow high-performers to thrive.

What do we actually do?

In short we do startup acceleration. We are trying to understand the startup ecosystem better than any other agent in the country. We are developing a playbook that increases the success rate of startups taking their idea to market. We design and build their ideas, and help them create a venture around their idea. Every project is completely unique and a new challenge. You will often be building projects from scratch and churning out a beautiful product within 6 Months.

What are our requirements for the role?

• +2-6 years experience in node and a frontend Framework (We use Angular)
• Some experience in AWS or Firebase (Our backend stacks)
• Experience with agile processes (We follow lean development)
• Experience in or leading a team (Our teams have BA’s, designers, 2-4 Devs, QA)
• Understanding of the full SDLC. We are not looking for someone who has built a few features here or there or done some maintenance. You will need a holistic understanding of the projects you work on, and might be architecting a few of them yourself.

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What we are looking for:

• Our entire business is built around talent. We need someone whose sole responsibility is on managing that talent.
• The most important part of talent recruitment is talent retention. Therefore your first responsibility is to the people of the company.
• We need people to constantly be motivated, empowered, and engaged.
• Our philosophy is to hire the best people, give them the support and context needed to succeed, and then get out of their way and let them do their job.
• Since we are looking for someone experienced in talent management I won't tell you how to do your job. The only things I really need you to focus on is a strategy to keep the best talent, a strategy to recruit the best talent, and then to execute on that strategy.

How is the company currently run:

We are a fast-paced high-performance team. Most of us (including the founding team) are straight out of varsity, self-taught, and follow the practices of innovative tech pioneers coming out of the valley. We aren't scared to experiment with new ways of doing things and weekly adapt our processes to adjust to our ever-changing business. Everyone has a voice here and takes "extreme ownership" of the tasks at hand - that means everyone feels a responsibility to ensure things get done properly, and communication flows up and down the chain of command. We have a healthy balance of structure to scale but the flexibility to inflict change. 

We have a work-hard-play-hard and learn-a-lot culture. You can often find people scooting to their desks, playing hakkie sack, or having some banter around the lunch area, but when people are at their desks they are blasting music in their earphones, in flow, and demolishing amazing amounts of work. We also believe that people grow the most when they get to do things they are unqualified to do - but we support each other and transfer skills and knowledge to allow each other to succeed and really grow quickly. We have a learning rate that far exceeds the norm, and we expect it from everyone.

The work can be damn challenging, but oh so rewarding as well. Our team is aligned with the vision, they see what we have achieved over the last two year and see where we are going. This is a super fun place to work, but we don't want to give people the illusion that it is easy.

People who are high-performers will thrive in this environment, people who aren't won't make it here. 

Still reading?

Good. There is a reason why I am so blunt in the above.

In all honesty, the most important function at the company is hiring, managing, and maximizing talent. 

I (CEO) still spend a good chunk of my time doing the recruitment myself, everyone who comes through the door is interviewed by me, and will continue to be until we are growing at such a rate that it is simply not possible anymore. I also spend a massive chunk of my time in one-on-one performance reviews and making sure there is constant alignment.

I need someone I can put my complete trust in to build out this strategy and do it better than I ever could. We will be working closely together, and your roles will change and grow so much over time.

Two years ago we had our first 2 staff. We are now 20. How we have had to manage people and processes has had to change so much in the last two years. By the end of the year, we will grow to a team of 40, 70 the next, and we will be breaking 100 people the year after. The way we do things will never be able to stay the same. I will need someone working closely with me to ensure we are growing the company sustainably, changing as we need to, but still staying true to our values and our vision.

You will be my most important hire.

I am looking for a leader, but someone who also needs to fulfill day to day tasks of your strategy while we build out your team. 

We're a startup, what can we offer?

So when you help us grow from 20 to 100 in the next three years you can justify a salary that blows the market out of the water - for now, we are still cash-strapped so let's talk about goal-based salary objectives. 

In the meantime we do have some great benefits:

The opportunities - what we will trust you with and what you will get to do will far exceed what you can do elsewhere. You will massively accelerate your career trajectory, and the offers people get after they put Specno on their Linkedin are actually just flattering. 
Awesome office culture with free breakfast, lunch, amazing coffee, comfortable space, WFH opportunities, flexi hours.
Relocation opportunities - we are going global, with the first of many international offices opening this month (Amsterdam baby)
High-performance collaborative team. It is rare when the whole team feels like they get along, and get along well. Since we all have that performance drive mindset, we are naturally a little competitive, but there is something special that happens when you put a bunch of super competent people together and they are working towards a common goal. Damn do things happen fast.
Twice a year company getaway. Many optional socials and we encourage partners so we can meet the people special in your life.
There are more perks but you can read about them in our company profile doc.

Realistically I am looking for someone with -+ 5 years experience, who is prepared to give the next 3-5 years towards their career and is hungry for the chance to massively grow themselves and their company.

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An ideal candidate would have

• An impressive digital portfolio showcasing prototypes that have that WOW factor
• The ability to analyze a client’s vision, the problem they’re trying to solve, their end-users, their competitors, their budget, their minimal viable product, and how their system might scale
• A passion for designing products with purpose and great user experience
• Strong communication skills and can confidently explain UX decisions to clients and gather feedback
• Degree from institutions like Red & Yellow, or AAA, Stellenbosch, UCT, Vega, CTCA, or relevant industry experience.
• A knack for learning new concepts, team player, driven, self-managing, curious, and hungry to continuously improve 
• At a startup you drive the culture, your reap what you sow, you get out what you put in so we are looking for someone who wants to build a company that inspires them and raises the industry standard for the work we do. 

Responsibilities will include

• Client management
• System analysis, research, wireframing, prototyping
• Finding creative solutions to complex web application challenges
• Possible general graphic design work
• Learn the development process, agile methodology and work in synergy with the development team
• Manage time and deadlines and leading the team to efficient project delivery that meets our high-quality standards.
• Work towards constantly improving our processes, brand, yourself and the team. We never want to stagnate and we expect our team to take ownership of where they can be pushing the company forward. 

Perks

• Awesome company culture: https://newsfeed.specno.com/culture
• Flexible working hours, generous leave policy, remote and international relocation opportunities
• Great working conditions
• Challenging projects with realistic deadlines and resources to accomplish your tasks
• Results driven
• Continuous learning opportunities and great career trajority
• Team lunches and after-work socials 
• A lot of trust and no micro-management 

Job type

• Short term contract or permanent position.
• Competitive salary with growth far above market. 

Sounds good? Apply now! 

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Job description 

• We are looking for an experienced, ambitious, and self-driven Front End Developer to join our team. As a FE dev, you will be responsible for working within a team of designers, analysts, and developers and building out progressive web apps. You will be implementing visual elements that users see and interact with within a web app, which makes your role crucial for the success of our business.
• We follow agile and apply it to our own business, constantly tweaking our processes in an effort to continuously improve the effectiveness of our teams. The environment is fast-paced, the projects are challenging and you will be pushed to learn and grow faster than the norm. You will be surrounded by smart and caring individuals who will uplift you and want to see you thrive, and it is expected you play your part in doing the same for your colleagues. We are looking for people who are passionate about what they do and really want to push the status quo. 

Description of the company

• Specno is South Africa's leading development agency and is on a mission to become the industry standard for innovation development. We are a collaborative team of talented individuals that deliver world-class tech solutions. We are looking for mid-level front-end developers with a good mixture of a creative and analytical brain and the desire to make a difference in the tech sector. We build really cool stuff and strive to delight our customers by consistently exceeding their expectations. We have grown to a team of 22 in the last two years, and never want to let go of that startup mentality, that excitement for industry and how quickly things happen. We invest in our people and our processes and are giving it our all to accomplishing our mission. 

Responsibilities

• Develop new user-facing features. 
• Build reusable code and libraries for future use. 
• Optimize application for maximum speeds and scalability. 
• Collaborate with other professionals such as back end developers and web designers. 
• Keep up with the latest and emerging technologies
• Potentially mentor junior developers
• Build processes within the company to constantly improve the team's performance

Requirements and Qualifications

• 2-6 years of experience as a front end or full-stack developer. 
• Excellent knowledge of JavaScript libraries and frameworks such as Angular, React, Vue, etc. 
• Proficient understanding of code versioning tools such as Git. A good understanding of SEO principles. 
• A sense of pride and ownership in your performance and its impact on the company's success. 
• Team player. 
• Critical thinker and problem-solving skills. 
• Degree in Computer Science or equivalent industry experience. 

Perks

• An awesome company culture of work-hard-play-hard and learn-a-lot.
• Flexible working hours, generous leave policy, remote and international relocation opportunities. 
• Great working conditions. 
• Challenging projects with realistic deadlines and resources to accomplish your tasks. 
• Results-driven. 
• Continuous learning opportunities and great career trajectory. 
• Team lunches and after-work socials. 
• A lot of trust and no micro-management  
• Be valued as an individual and have a voice to shape the company. 

Our recruiting process: CV -> questionnaire -> interview -> technical assessment -> second interview