Front End Engineer / JavaScript Hacker

About us:

* Tapulous is the #1 developer of iPhone games. We are a profitable <20 person team in downtown Palo Alto, CA. We are growing FAST
* Our flagship title, Tap Tap Revenge has been downloaded 20+ million times. 32% of all of iPhone/iPod touch users have downloaded the game and it's played over 2 million times a day around the world
* Mobile apps are the next frontier. Contact us if you’d like to join the market leader

About the Job:

* This IS NOT a job building game titles. We are looking for someone to work on our social features - our store, chat client, news feed, profile manager, leader board - the things outside of our core gaming experience that make Tapulous great
* You’ll spend a large percentage of your time hacking JavaScript to make our web experience look, act and perform like a native iPhone application
* You’ll be writing a lot of non-standards-compliant custom code that runs on the iPhone… this is a job for someone with trial-and-error “make it work” DNA

Responsibilities:

* Build and maintain fast-rendering reusable components using JavaScript and AJAX for a top-5 iPhone application
* JQuery is our foundation, but let’s face it, we go off the reservation pretty frequently. You are the sort of hacker who lives in a text editor reading, writing and testing custom JavaScript code to make things awesome
* Collaborate closely with other engineers, designers and our executive team to define, design and ship new features
* Optimize for scalability and efficiency (we have, you know, a lot of users)
* Own copious amounts of custom code that makes stuff RAD

Requirements:

* A minimum of 5 years software engineering experience. High school and College count
* Your core skill is not cutting and pasting code, or using libraries, you are the type of engineer who builds libraries or extends them to be more performant in specific circumstances
* You are obsessed (borderline compulsive actually) about making user interfaces both look right and work right. This occasionally causes you to go long periods of time without sleep
* You thrive in small, collaborative, energetic teams
* You dig user experience and have opinions, but are first and foremost an engineer who builds applications, not a designer
* You enjoy working in an environment that ships frequent, small iterations, where plans are constantly in flux and good ideas triumph quickly
* You communicate well out loud, on paper and in code
* The intersection of community, the web, mobile and gaming is a place you’d love to live for the next couple of years

Nice to have:

* You read up on and experiment with new technologies because it’s in your nature, not because it’s a job requirement
* Experience building applications for the mobile web
* Many years of experience hacking JavaScript, preferably with a strong understanding of jquery and its capabilities and limitations.
* Experience hacking mobile webkit
* Experience working on a high traffic / high availability website
* Deep expertise in HTML, CSS and other presentation layer technologies
* Formal training in computer science (bachelors, masters, whatever)

How to Apply:

* Play Tap Tap Revenge. No seriously, please play before you apply. We will talk to you about the experience as part of the interview process.
* Write a cover letter. Applications without cover letters will not be considered. We need people who can write code and English. Please discuss why this job sounds fun.
* When you finish your job application we'll show how you are connected to our team on LinkedIn. We strongly prefer applications with endorsements. Please ask anyone we know in common to endorse your job application.
* You must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis for any employer. We will not sponsor visas, nor will we hire consultants through sub-contractors that hold your visa.