Manara is a social impact startup whose mission is to unlock human potential and diversify the global tech sector while uplifting the economies of the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), with a focus on Palestine and women. The region has the highest youth unemployment in the world (higher than subSaharan Africa) despite high levels of tertiary education. Women are particularly impacted: in Palestine, 52% of computer science students are women, but 83% of them end up unemployed.
We run an entirely remote solution to identify the top computer scientists in the region, teach them how to pass interviews, vet them, and help them find amazing jobs (whether remote or on-site). It works: at Google 71% of our referrals in our last batch were hired.
We don’t stop at job placement. Our vision is to build the top tech talent community in the MENA region and support them at each stage in their lifecycle to help them reach their dreams: how to get a promotion, become a manager, be the first woman engineer on a team, etc. The community is driven by a tech product that facilitates connection, shared learning, and motivation.
Our team previously worked at Google, Upwork, Nvidia, Box, and Gaza Sky Geeks. We are experienced founders, operators, and technologists.
Our investors include Stripe, Y Combinator, Seedcamp, Reid Hoffman, Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Namrata Ganatra (the former CTO of Lambda School), Christina Sass (the former President of Andela), and Emma Tracey (the founder of Honeypot).
Your Role
As one of the first engineers at a growing startup, you will build our tech product from scratch. You will be closely involved in determining which features we build, how we design the user experience, and how we design the architecture.
Our tech product’s initial mission is to provide a delightful experience for the users of our training & job placement program and empower us to place 10x more engineers in world-class jobs without having to 10x the staff & expenses. For example, our participants should be able to book mock interviews with volunteers from top tech companies like Google after browsing the profiles of mock interviewers and seeing which are available. They also need to be able to keep track of their assignments and see how they are performing compared to other classmates.
Our tech product’s next mission is to provide value as a standalone solution which:
- Teaches non-traditional candidates how to do behavioral interviews & write resumes
- Supports them with their job hunt so they know how to conduct it
- Builds a community of the top talent in the Middle East & North Africa so they can inspire & support each other
Imagine a blend of Udacity, Grammarly, LinkedIn, and Stack Overflow for this region. :-)
You’ll implement complex workflows in our Next.js/Node application. Knowing Next.js is a good-to-have but not a requirement for this role.
We will invest heavily in your growth. You will be managed by a seasoned engineering manager & architect. If desired, you may have the chance to manage junior engineers.
Your Qualifications
Note: Diverse candidates often screen themselves out of job applications if they don’t have all the qualifications. Please apply if you’re excited about the role - we’d love to see your application!
Technical skills (required):
- Write high-quality, maintainable code with unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.
- Work closely with stakeholders in a cross-functional team, collaborating effectively with Operations, Product, Design, etc.
- Work with the latest technologies including Javascript, Tailwind, and Formic. Typescript and Next.js are nice to have.
- Design the architecture for our solutions, including the backend and database.
- Focus on business value. You don’t want to simply complete tickets, you want to understand how each ticket gets us closer to our goals.
Technical skills (not required):
- Skilled at mentoring junior engineers
- Next.js knowledge
- Ability to figure out when it makes sense to build our own product vs buying existing software from a vendor
Soft skills:
- Remote: You have experience working on effective remote teams & thrive in such environments. You work well across time zones (e.g., you communicate effectively via asynchronous oral & verbal channels).
- Ability to handle ambiguity: we’re an early-stage startup which means the roadmap will change
- Execution/project management: As a small startup, we depend heavily on each person to be reliable and effective. You get things done efficiently and accurately, with little need for supervision. You use tools like Jira & remember everything that needs to get done.
- Collaboration/team player: You can work effectively with other people at Manara. For example, you partner closely with our sales leader who manages our hiring partner network to make matches between our participants and companies. You collaborate with our training/program manager to develop new training programs based on what you see posing challenges for our job hunters. You roll up your sleeves to do the unglamorous work or support a team member when needed.
- Growth mentality: You love learning, are hungry for feedback, and can quickly learn new things (process, technologies, etc.)
- Passionate about Manara’s mission of creating a community that unlocks the full potential of top tech talent in MENA (with a focus on Palestine & women)
Location
We are a fully remote team, so you can be located anywhere. For this role we are primarily recruiting from the Middle East & North Africa but we are open to any location.
Our team today is spread between San Francisco, Berlin, Istanbul, France and Palestine. Our US team travels regularly to Europe (including Eastern Europe) and MENA, and we plan to do an annual meetup for our global team.
