Job Details
Job Overview
Responsibilities
This role is focused on scaling Arist’s core Ruby on Rails platform and pioneering new AI-powered experiences that redefine enterprise learning. You’ll work side-by-side with the founders and product leaders to shape architecture, build core backend systems, and mentor engineers — all while working on a platform used by hundreds of thousands of learners globally.
Responsibilities
- Own and evolve our core backend: Drive development of core application features and architecture in Ruby on Rails.
- Architect for scale and speed: Design systems that power real-time learning delivery across SMS, Teams, and beyond.
- Collaborate deeply: Partner with product managers, designers, and other engineers to ship features that delight users and align with business impact.
- Shape new product areas: Contribute to new AI-powered experiences and tools that extend Arist’s impact across the enterprise.
- Mentor and elevate: Set technical direction, establish best practices, and raise the bar for code quality, scalability, and performance.
Qualifications
- 8+ years of professional experience in Ruby on Rails, including production-scale systems.
- Strong ability to design backend systems that balance flexibility, performance, and maintainability.
- Experience with REST APIs, PostgreSQL, ActiveRecord, Sidekiq, and GraphQL.
- Strong product instinct — translating business goals into elegant, well-scoped solutions.
- Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Bias for action and pride in shipping meaningful work.
- Curiosity for AI and how it can transform learning.
Ideal Candidate
- Architect & Builder – Deep Rails expertise with the ability to design and scale complex backend systems.
- Strong Collaborator – Communicates clearly across technical and non-technical teams, driving impact through thoughtful solutions.
- Technically Excellent – Expert in Rails, PostgreSQL, Sidekiq, GraphQL, and modern backend patterns.
- Ownership Mentality – Operates with autonomy, product instinct, and a bias for shipping meaningful work fast.
- Examples of Candidates (do not contact):
Must-Have Requirements
8+ years of experience with Ruby on Rails, including production-scale systems. Proven ability to architect and scale backend systems for performance and reliability. Strong proficiency with PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Sidekiq, and GraphQL. Excellent communication skills and a track record of shipping impactful products. US citizen or visa holder.
Screening Questions
Common Rejection Reasons
Experience Level: The candidate demonstrates mid-level engineer signals, but the role requires staff or principal-level technical depth, architectural ownership, and product impact. Technical Fit: The candidate's Ruby on Rails experience lacks depth in scaling production systems or leading major architectural rewrites required for Arist’s environment. Startup Experience: The candidate has limited experience working at early-stage startups (ideally 7–8M ARR) or fast-scaling product companies where engineers own large portions of the stack. Enterprise Exposure: The candidate has not built or maintained systems used by enterprise customers, which is key for Arist’s product maturity and customer base. Depth of Contribution: The candidate’s contributions are unclear or lack evidence of end-to-end ownership (e.g., project descriptions focus on features, not outcomes or impact). Career Stability: The candidate has switched roles frequently, which may raise concerns about long-term commitment and consistency of performance. Portfolio & Project Quality: Personal or freelance projects shared appear to be early-stage or hobby-level rather than production-grade or revenue-driving applications. Communication & Collaboration: The candidate did not demonstrate strong product sense or ability to collaborate effectively with designers, product teams, or customers. Culture Fit: The candidate may not align with Arist’s cultural values of being caring, kind, ambitious, adaptable, and highly agile in learning. Startup vs. Consultancy Background: Experience appears more consultancy or contractor-driven rather than product-focused, which may not align with Arist’s full-time team expectations. Compensation: The candidate’s salary expectations are above the market range for their demonstrated level of impact and ownership. Location: The candidate is not based in the U.S. or is unavailable for collaboration within overlapping time zones, which is required for this position. Interest Alignment: The candidate expressed limited interest in product or customer-facing problem-solving, which is critical to this hands-on engineering role.
These are common reasons why candidates have been rejected for this position. Consider these when selecting candidates to submit.
About the Company
Company Overview
Our Mission
Arist is growing ~4x YoY, will hit ~$10M ARR and be profitable by EOY, has zero competitors, is a lean team of 18, and pays exceptionally well. Arist is building end-to-end agents to replace HR and Training teams and make learning 10x better. Clients include Microsoft and Novartis.
About Arist
Backed by Y Combinator, Acadian Ventures, and Soma Capital, Arist is a text message learning platform helping Fortune 500 companies and large organizations — including DuPont, GE, and the State of California — create, deploy, and assess text message courses.
Our long-term vision is to deliver critical knowledge and training to anyone in the world, regardless of traditional learning barriers, one text message at a time.
What's a text message course?
A series of texts, images/GIFs, and interactive exercises/questions delivered over 5 to 30 days via SMS or WhatsApp. Backed by research from Stanford and Harvard, text message courses see ~10x the completion and satisfaction rates of other learning mediums.
In fact, we view text message courses as a brand-new content medium, with a variety of impactful use cases ranging from preventing misinformation to COVID-19 training in refugee camps to DEI training for startups.
Why text messages?
A majority of the world's population — including frontline employees, distributed teams, and remote audiences — has access to SMS and WhatsApp. Meanwhile, internet access is limited globally, making video courses inaccessible to over 3 billion people, including 30 million Americans.
As well, it can also take months to build a traditional workshop or video course, while text message courses can be built and deployed in a day — by one person — ensuring frictionless transfer of knowledge. Writers have to get to the point, so learners get the most valuable insights, concepts, and case studies.
The best part? 95% of people read a text within 3 minutes. As a result, we help create and deliver content employees love in a way that they will actually read and engage with. Don't take our word for it — try a text message course about text message courses here.
Company Culture
Arist’s culture is rooted in mission, pragmatism, and impact. We believe learning should be frictionless, embedded in daily workflows, and designed for real-world results. Our team values thoughtful, asynchronous communication (memo-driven), rapid iteration powered by AI, and uncompromising standards of enterprise reliability.
Rather than buzzwords, our culture is defined by outcomes: a relentless focus on solving measurable business problems, empowering teammates to think independently, and building with agility and purpose.
Benefits
Relocation & Sponsorship
What you can expect
Day to Day
You’ll spend your time architecting, building, and scaling core Rails systems that power Arist’s real-time learning platform. Most days will balance deep backend development with close collaboration alongside founders, product managers, and designers. You’ll move quickly from idea to production, shaping new product areas while ensuring the platform remains performant, reliable, and secure.
Team
You’ll join a lean, highly technical founding team, reporting directly to the CTO and working closely with the CEO and product leads. The team has deep experience in backend systems, AI/ML, and enterprise software — all focused on building a platform used by hundreds of thousands of learners. You’ll have significant ownership and autonomy, with the ability to shape architecture, standards, and culture.
Growth
This is a founding-level role with major opportunities for impact and advancement. You’ll have the chance to:
- Own core backend systems from day one.
- Mentor and grow future engineers as the team scales.
- Influence product and technical strategy at the highest levels.
- Build a track record of shipping scalable systems — positioning yourself for future leadership roles within Arist or beyond.
Interview Process
- Screening Interview with co-founder and CPO
- Technical interview with with CTO
- 20hr paid project (if feasible)
- Peer interview with 2 engineers
- Final interview with 2 co-founders
Companies to Source From
These companies are similar to our client. Candidates with experience at these companies are seen as a big plus.
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