Hey there! We're looking for a new member to join the Ghost team, maybe that's you?

We're a non-profit organisation 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 which has been profitable from year 1 and has been growing healthily ever since. Currently our annual revenue is $6,000,000+. We're very transparent about our mission and our metrics, you can read all about us.

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.

Chances are you've already visited and read sites which run on Ghost! Our users range from renowned publications like 404 Media, Platformer, Tangle, and many, many more.

As the company grows, we're looking for an Engineering Manager to support our engineers as they tackle the challenges of delivering a world-class product for independent publishers. This is a senior role reporting to our VP of Engineering and you'll have lots of influence on how we work and collaborate.

About the work

At Ghost, we place a heavy emphasis on learning, craft, and the quality of what we build. We build to learn and are always looking for opportunities to improve. Based on a deep understanding of our customers (we call them publishers) we build iteratively on our way to insightful, complete solutions that we love.

Teams at Ghost are typically made up of 2-4 engineers, often collaborating with designers and infrastructure engineers. The role we're hiring for here will be responsible for managing the engineers on one or more of our teams, helping to plan work in collaboration with our product colleagues, and working directly with our engineers on the day-to-day challenges of delivering working software to production.

Ghost is a full-stack, open source JavaScript web application. The primary technologies on the backend are Node.js/MySQL8, while our front-end stack is a mixture of Ember.js and an increasing amount of React. Any familiarity with our stack will be a big advantage for someone applying for this position.

What you’ll be doing:

• Chatting regularly 1:1 with engineers, listening to their concerns, making sure they’re feeling engaged and productive, and providing specific feedback on performance – both the good and the not-so-good

• Mentoring engineers to help them in their growth to become the best engineers they’re capable of becoming. We’re always looking for opportunities to become better at shipping the right software, confidently and safely

• Running retrospectives to reflect back and using it as an opportunity to celebrate achievements, discover ways to improve as a team, and to identify and remove roadblocks

• Coordinating internal documentation and guides to make sure that our bus factor is healthy, and new team members can be onboarded easily

• Working with support and product leadership to determine our appetite for addressing our prioritized bugs and issues, always staying in touch with whether our publishers are satisfied and advocating for taking the necessary action when they're not

• Participating in the planning process by soliciting context for your teams and surfacing relevant information to the rest of the company

• Identifying coordination/collaboration challenges with other teams and working with peers and leadership to continuously improve how we work as a company

• Participating in our incident response process as a coordinator of major product issues, following up on actions and ensuring they’re seen through to resolution

• Alongside our leadership team, hire and onboard new JavaScript developers: filtering resumes, conducting interviews, evolving our hiring process

• Fostering an environment that feels fun, creative, and joyful — as that is how the best ideas become a reality.

Ideally, we're looking for someone who is...

• A people-leader with lots of experience managing software developers in a remote context

• You've got a background in software development and you're comfortable guiding engineers on how to approach complex technical challenges

• You're familiar with how high-performing teams use cloud native practices, observability tools, Twelve-Factor apps and similar methodologies

• You understand the difference between a highly effective process and one that gets in our way, and you're always advocating for ways in which to improve how we work

• You're comfortable working independently and have a keen sense for when to escalate and ask for help

• You're a life-long learner and experienced in helping others grow to reach their potential

• You’re a clear communicator. As a remote team, concise written communication is absolutely essential

• Total comfort working in a 100% remote environment, at a small company. Ghost is around 35 people, and we intend to stay small

• A location in a timezone between UTC-0 to UTC+3

What it's like to work here:

In 2020, a large number of companies became 'remote' for the first time, and immediately transformed their conference rooms into Zoom calls as they sought to embrace a new world order: Micro-managing people... from a distance.

Ghost has been fully remote for more than a decade, so our entire culture has been shaped around that from day one. Since 2013, we've carefully crafted a calm working environment based on trust and autonomy. Most people here have 1 or 2 video calls a week, choose their own working hours, and have plenty of time for deep/focused work that takes place on their own terms.

Our two most fundamental values are freedom and responsibility, and you'll be given plenty of both. We measure outcomes, rather than hours-worked.

This is not a fledgeling tech startup, fighting to survive and forcing everyone to work overtime. There's no hustle, and we don't grind. We believe that work should enable your life, not the other way around — so we encourage reasonable work schedules, plenty of time off, and solid sleep.

We value diversity of all types at Ghost and our team is made up of a kind, thoughtful group of people with a wide range of backgrounds. Between us, we speak 15 different languages. Some of us are single, others are married, while others are parents. We actively try to find people with different perspectives and experiences to the ones we already have. Women and minorities of any description are especially encouraged to apply!

Salary & benefits

The starting salary range for this position is $125,000 to $185,000 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.

On top of that, we offer a range of benefits...

All jobs at Ghost come with

💵 Competitive salary Based on role, skill, experience and location.

🌍 Work from anywhere From a home office, or be a nomad if that's your thing. Everything we do is online. As long as you have wifi, you're all set.

💻 Hardware A brand new Macbook + an office workspace setup budget.

🏢 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, Dubai, Thailand & Spain.

📅 4-day work weeks We close the office on a Friday. Enjoy!

🏝 Unlimited paid vacation If you don't take a minimum of a 2 week break yourself, we'll kick you out of the office in December.

👶 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 in line with market rates, so you'll never be stuck on what you start on.

🐶 Dog friendly office ...just kidding we literally don't have an office. So, um. Feel free to work with your dog. Cats are cool, too.

Who you'll be working with

Not the right position for you?

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