Remote Senior Software Engineer

About us

Quiet is a free software, peer-to-peer alternative to Slack and Discord. We’re building it because we believe most Internet users will only escape Big Tech and “the cloud” once free software can connect the devices they control (their phones, their laptops) to provide full-featured online spaces for work and community life, with no server required. 

We’re hiring a senior software engineer to help us prove that using free software for communication and collaboration doesn’t need to mean trusting someone else’s server or running one’s own.

It’s an exciting time for peer-to-peer communication tools; they aren’t pipe dreams anymore! Tools like IPFS, libp2p, CRDTs like Automerge, and overlay networks like Tor do a lot of the heavy lifting, making it easier for teams to focus on the mix of features, reliability, and security properties real users need. 

We think Quiet is the farthest along among comparable projects, but there’s still a ton of work to be done. Quiet has working releases for desktop and Android, and iOS is very close. We use Quiet internally for our team chat, but we have tricky reliability improvements to make—as well as a ton of features to build—before most real teams or communities could use Quiet daily as a Slack substitute.

Your role will be to help us move surefooted, with urgency, through features and stack-level  challenges.

About you

5+ years of experience delivering user-facing software in a high-stakes setting
Experienced delivering software products for desktop and/or mobile
Can mentor and guide other engineers
Prepared to contribute immediately to our Electron, React, React Native, Node.js, TypeScript project. (We use React Native with a Node.js backend on mobile.)
Familiar with test-driven development; ready to work with tools like Jest, React Testing Library, Chromatic, Cypress, and WebDriver
Ready to assess new tools and research in the peer-to-peer, local-first space for applicability to challenges we face
Experienced enough with how software projects play out over time to help us navigate risk and scope for the long term
Ready to work in US or European time zones

Not required, but a plus

Experience with peer-to-peer or local-first software
Experience with security
Experience building high-availability web apps at scale
Expertise in one of the technologies we build on: Tor, IPFS, libp2p, or distributed databases, and readiness to become an expert in the others
Contributions to one of these projects, or a similar project

What we offer

100% remote with regular in-person retreats and meetings
An option of in-person work in the northeast U.S. 
Salary $60-$160k depending on experience
Equity
Unlimited PTO