Senior JavaScript Engineer (Product)

About the Company

Ghost is a non-profit organization on a mission to create modern, independent publishing technology to power the future of online journalism. This is not a rocket ship. You won't find any unicorn glitter or exponential curves around here, just a real company with a sustainable business that has been profitable from year 1 and has been growing healthily ever since. Currently, annual revenue is $10,000,000+.

Ghost is a full-stack web application for running independent publications. It's one of the most popular modern open-source projects in the world and is used in production by tens of thousands of websites and companies. Users range from renowned publications like 404 Media, Platformer, and Tangle News to prominent tech companies like Y Combinator, First Round Review, Cloudflare, and Kickstarter, and many more.

What We're Looking For

This role is open to candidates in time zones between UTC−1 and UTC+3.

For this position, we're specifically looking for senior JavaScript engineers with a strong track record of shipping large-scale, production-ready projects and working effectively within teams.

You should be confident in taking a broad brief, defining technical solutions, navigating architectural tradeoffs, and driving projects from inception to completion with a high level of autonomy. Beyond just writing great code, we expect senior engineers to provide technical leadership and help set best practices that enable the whole team to succeed.

Requirements

• Senior JavaScript engineers with a strong track record of shipping large-scale, production-ready projects
• Experience working effectively within teams
• Node and/or React experience is key to working on Ghost
• Decent grasp of MySQL
• Good understanding of modern CI/CD practices
• Ability to take a broad brief, define technical solutions, and navigate architectural tradeoffs
• Drive projects from inception to completion with a high level of autonomy
• Provide technical leadership and help set best practices
• Collaborate actively, share knowledge, and provide thoughtful code reviews
• Strong written communication skills
• Highly self-motivated

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience working with other parts of the Ghost stack: Knex, Express, and Handlebars
• Experience with startups
• Experience with SaaS
• Open source contributions
• Experience with distributed applications
• Remote work experience

Role Overview & Responsibilities

This role is part of the Engineering team at Ghost. As a Product Engineer, you will be responsible for:

• Writing large-scale, production-ready code
• Shipping code that will be released as open source under the MIT license
• Taking broad briefs and defining technical solutions
• Navigating architectural tradeoffs
• Driving projects from inception to completion with high autonomy
• Providing technical leadership and mentorship to team members
• Setting best practices that enable the whole team to succeed
• Actively sharing knowledge and providing thoughtful code reviews
• Helping create an environment where everyone can grow
• Pairing with teammates on tough problems
• Improving documentation
• Mentoring other engineers
• Participating in on-call rotations as part of taking responsibility for our work

Culture & Work Environment

We place a strong emphasis on collaboration, mentorship, and enabling others to do their best work. As part of our team, you'll be expected to actively share knowledge, provide thoughtful code reviews, and help create an environment where everyone can grow. A willingness to give and receive feedback, communicate openly, and contribute to a culture of continuous learning is essential to success in this role.

One of the major perks of engineering at Ghost is that almost every single thing you work on will be released as open source under the MIT license. So you're not just writing code for us, you're writing it for yourself and for everyone else - both now, and in the future. Instead of spending years doing work that will eventually be locked away in a box labelled "intellectual property" — you'll get to write code which is open for anyone to use, including you in your own future projects!

People who are great at written communication and highly self-motivated tend to do best at Ghost. The majority of our team is made up of former founders, freelancers, and self-starters who are confident and comfortable working independently and getting things done.

This role would be well-suited to someone who is experienced at building/shipping products, looking for a big/interesting thing to work on with a great international team and a healthy work/life balance.

We work remotely from all over the world! Most of our communication happens on Slack and Linear, with meetings held via Google Meet.

The biggest perk of working at Ghost is that we have a small, talented team with a very large audience. This means you can have a huge impact on the product and the company, whilst also working on interesting and challenging problems. We believe deeply in what we do, and we're all in this to build something lasting, sustainable, and positive.

We value diversity in all its forms at Ghost, and our team is made up of a kind, thoughtful group of people with a wide range of backgrounds. We actively seek out people with perspectives and experiences different from our own. Women and minorities of any description are especially encouraged to apply!

Compensation

The starting salary range for this position is $140,000 to $180,000 USD. Most offers we make fall somewhere in the middle of the range. The exact offer will be determined by a combination of your experience and our interview process.

Benefits

• Competitive salary - Based on role, skill, experience and location
• Work from anywhere - Everything we do is online. As long as you have wifi, you're all set
• Hardware - A brand new MacBook Pro + a budget for office setup and the latest AI tools
• Co-working - If you prefer to work from a co-working space, we'll help pay for it
• Continue your personal development - A budget for attending conferences, taking courses, and purchasing books
• Worldwide team trips - The last few trips have taken us to the UK, Spain & Italy
• 4-day work weeks - We close the office on Fridays. Enjoy!
• Generous paid vacation - We want everyone to have proper time off. We even shut down for two weeks over Christmas
• Paid parental leave - When the time comes to welcome a new member of the family, we offer generous and fully paid parental leave
• Pay reviews - Everyone at Ghost receives an annual pay review against market rates, so your compensation can grow alongside your experience and impact

How to Apply

Our hiring process and timeline can vary from role to role, but typically you can expect:

• Step 1: We'll review your application against the needs of team
• Step 2: A video call with a member of the operations team so we can get to know each other a little better. It's an informal call, there's nothing to prepare
• Step 3: A second video call, usually with the hiring manager. This call has a more technical focus and gives you the opportunity to find out what might be like to be a member of the Ghost team
• Step 4: A third video call will be with a member of our Leadership Team. During this call, we'd like you to share your screen and pair program with them
• Step 5: A paid trial project - typically 15 hours of work. This provides a great opportunity to understand what it's like to work at Ghost
• Step 6: A fourth video call to review your trial project
• Step 7: A final interview with one of our Leadership Team
• Step 8: An offer

We receive many applications for each position. A real human member of the Ghost team will review every one, so take your time - we care about the details. We especially encourage applications from women and people from underrepresented groups.

Additional Information

If this role isn't right for you, but you're interested in hearing about other roles that open up in the future, you can subscribe to our careers mailing list! We never use this list for any promotional emails, marketing, or anything else.