OnPoint

Hiring: UI Engineer

Viewpoints Network is hiring a seasoned UI engineer to join our technology team in Chicago. We are passionate about changing the way people find products and share their product experiences, and we need a front-end specialist to help lead the charge.

We develop using the Ruby on Rails stack, git for source control, Linux development boxes and your workstation/tools of choice. One of the biggest Rails sites on the web, we follow the agile method of software engineering and deploy our own code biweekly.

We are looking for a front-end expert who is also a true software engineer. You should understand the entire web application stack and software development life cycle while specializing on the user-interface layer. In short, you should put the “V” in “MVC.”

You should also:

• Be able to work effectively with information architects, designers, product mangers, back-end developers and other front-end programmers.
• Thoroughly understand responsive design, device independence, web standards and SEO-focused front-end engineering.
• Possess serious JavaScript fu and be comfortable working with any JS framework.
• Be comfortable enough with the Rails stack to hand-edit ERB templates, helpers and controllers. Bonus points if you’re comfortable wading into models, plugins, etc.
• Understand how to architect CSS for maintainability and flexibility rather than blindly pixel-matching a comp.
• Know more about HTML5 than just the buzzwords and understand how to implement it today, even on Internet Explorer.
• Be more than a code monkey. You should be able to set and follow coding standards, help pick frameworks, mentor colleagues, understand business objectives, and run code reviews.
• Excel at producing high-quality work on aggressive time lines.
• Bonus points for being an accomplished command-line programmer or open-source participant.

We will provide you with:

• Challenging work and the chance to learn every day from a group of high-performance peers in a tight-knit environment.
• A flexible schedule including core office hours, blocks of meeting-free development time, and the chance to work from home one day a week.
• Self-directed “idea time” to explore new technologies and pet projects on your own every Friday afternoon.
• A competitive salary and bonus program and full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k).

Ready for the challenge?  Please send your resume to kiverson@viewpoints.com

 

CEC Selects Viewpoints as as Finalist for the 2011 Merrick Momentum Award

The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC) today announced the three finalists for its prestigious Merrick Momentum Award:

 

• GrubHub – an internet startup that connects consumers with restaurants that deliver to their neighborhood.
• Ifbyphone – a voice-based marketing automation platform that helps companies drive sales, reduce collection cycles, measure marketing effectiveness and improve customer experience.
• Viewpoints – an internet startup that operates a hosted technology service for user reviews and social engagement as well as a leading user reviews and advice website.

 

The Merrick Momentum Award recognizes the entrepreneurial stars that have demonstrated momentum since their inception and are poised for continued growth.  The Award is named after Merrick Ventures, LLC, the company that has sponsored it for four straight years.

Hiring: Ruby on Rails Engineer

Viewpoints Network is hiring Ruby on Rails engineers to join our technology team in Chicago.   We are passionate about changing the way people share their product experiences and looking for ways to connect them with the best product.  We develop using Ruby and Rails and are one of the larger rails sites on the web.  MySQL and Redis keep our data straight and fast.  We manage our work with agile methods and deploy our own code.

We are looking for people who:

• Have production experience with Ruby on Rails
• Write clean, DRY Ruby code
• Understand and have a passion for testing  and TDD (unit, functional, and integration tests)
• Excited by creating applications others use and love
• Design and implement projects from the database layer to the web tier
• Remember their first computer more fondly then their first car
• Optimize application execution times using detailed understanding of Rails, SQL, and caching techniques
• Work fluidly in a Linux based environment
• Are pragmatic and always looking to improve themselves and what they do
• Understand code management techniques using git
• Have a strong passion for technology
• Can think of at least two times they helped solve a production problem and the satisfaction that went along with it
• Able to produce high quality work on aggressive time lines
• Don’t want to rely on others to deploy their code to production
• Work with other developers to plan and execute integration with other components
• Thrive working in an agile environment
• Bonus: Have experience with MySQL, Redis, Endeca, and shell scripting
• Bonus: Experience working on open source projects
• Bonus: Knowledge of CSS/Javascript/Front end technology
• Bonus: Have experience working with cloud environments.  Not the kind that pop out of the wall when you need to edit a family photo, but real ones.

What we provide you:

• Challenging work and the chance to learn every day from a high performance group of peers in a tight nit environment
• Work from home one day a week
• Competitive salary and bonus program
• Self directed project time every Friday afternoon
• Full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k)

Ready for the challenge?  Please send your resume to kiverson@viewpoints.com

 

Office Space Available in River North

Are you running a cool digital technology company and looking for a space to expand?  Would you like to work in River North where you are steps away from the brown line and 10 minutes from the Metra station? Do you like brick and timber offices with open floor plans, glass walls and communal kitchens?

Viewpoints has about 40 open desks, 3 conference rooms and 2 offices open and is looking to rent them out at competitive rates to starts up who need space to grow.  The pricing is real simple. $400 a desk with a 5 desk minimum. Shared conference room or dedicated conf rooms or offices for an extra fee.  Looking for 6 to 18 month committments.  Call Matt Moog at 312 953 2478 if you are interested or e-mail me at matt@viewpoints.com

 

Pictures below

Hiring - VP of Sales for Viewpoints Network

Job summary

The Vice President of Sales for Viewpoints Network reports to the CEO as a member of the Senior Leadership Team.  This role requires energy, ambition, a razor sharp mind, great communication skills, people management experience, extensive digital media sales chops, a passion for social media and innovative business models and a personality that will thrive in a fast paced, constantly changing entrepreneurial environment.

Viewpoints Network, a leading provider of consumer reviews is on a growth trajectory to triple our current size and become a top 100 web property with 10 million monthly users within the next 24 months.  In doing so we will create significant value for our users, customers, shareholders and employees. We stand at the intersection of four of the most important drivers of the digital age:  interactive advertising, ecommerce, social media and mobile. In short, for the right person ready to step up to the challenge of driving 100%+ annual revenue growth, this is a career changing opportunity.

Based in Chicago or potentially NYC. 

The future of marketing in a short and inspiring video

PHD put together this great video which any marketer out there who is stuck in the old way of thinking should listen and watch and share with their colleagues.  Here a Viewpoints we believe that consumer reviews are an essential part of what this video envisions as the needs of the next generation of consumers. 

 

Hiring: Ops/Sys Admin Guru

Viewpoints Network is the fastest growing consumer reviews site on the web.  We are looking for an operations/system administration guru to join our technology team to help continue moving our operational environments forward.  Our site traffic is doubling year over year and we are one of the largest Rails sites on the web.  If the following sounds like you, we should talk.

• Have used Linux for so long the idea of not being able to have a *nix server in your own house seems strange to you.
• Have experience working with cloud environments.  Not the kind that pop out of the wall when you need to edit a family photo, but real ones.
• Can configure Apache, nginx, a load balancer and have done so outside of work.
• Can compile a kernel and chew gum at the same time.
• Skilled at building RPMs or similar packages.   Have a strong perspective on the value of packaging vs. just installing software.
• Can maintain and spec hardware in your sleep.  
• The words iostat, vmstat, and proc bring back memories of at least two great production issues you personally solved.
• Understand TCP/IP fundamentals like the back of your hand.
• Have experience with MySQL, and still use it anyway.
• Experience with scripting languages (extra credit for Bash and Ruby experience.)
• Deep understanding of at least one monitoring system.   Understanding of other monitoring systems and ideas about what would make an even better one.
• Excited with the opportunity to closely work with developers in a tight knit operation.
• Work well with a variety of opinions and perspectives not all matching your own.  Willing to be proven wrong.
• Understand the fundamentals of continuous integration and continuous deployment.

Interested?  Send your resume to kiverson@viewpoints.com to find out more.

 

Viewpoints 2010 Year In Review

As the year comes to a close, I am pleased to report that 2010 was another banner year for Viewpoints. Traffic to our sites grew by 65%. Throughout the year Viewpoints helped more than 45 million people harness the power of consumer reviews to help shoppers make more informed purchase decisions. We could not have done any of this without our amazing staff (now up to 55+ people) and the 500,000 contributors who wrote reviews, answered questions, participated in forums, and ultimately delivered a compelling combination of content, community and commerce. Through their passion, creativity and commitment we were able to add nearly 1 million new users in the just last 90 days, hitting 4.9 million monthly users in December.
We feel fortunate to be part of the massive changes happening in media and commerce that are being driven by an increasingly socially connected and mobile enabled world.
Here are a few highlights from the year:
Viewpoints Answers launched to provide consumers with answers about specific products and categories
The Goods launched as the Viewpoints daily consumer products blog

Hiring: Internet Advertising Account Executive

Job summary

Due to strong growth, we are looking for an Internet Advertising Account Executive to join our team to help connect marketers with our audience through branding and sponsorship programs as well as innovative Social Influencer Packages.  

About our Advertising Opportunities

We offer Targeted Media opportunities that allow advertisers to reach in-market consumers while they are actively in the process of researching a purchase decision; we believe this is one of the best opportunities to drive brand awareness, traffic, and sales.  Further, our clients will reach a coveted consumer: female, aged 25-54, who shops online, is active in social media, has children and owns a home.   We offer advertisers extraordinary targeting options – clients can target campaigns at the category, sub-category, product, brand, review, or reviewer level.  Marketers can advertise around their own reviews or their competitors, or both, and we do all of this via IAB standard units or custom, high impact rich media and takeover formats as well as custom sponsorship opportunities.

The Consumer Decision Journey from Harvard Business Review

A fascinating article today in the Harvard Business Review about the changing expectations and behaviors of consumers. They way they make decisions, and the number of touch points that brands have with them is changing.  The journey according to the author David Edelman, is more iterative and less reductive process that has four basic stages: a) Consider, b) Evaluate, c) Buy, - d) Enjoy, Advocate, Bond.

These insights are based on a study of 20,000 consumers.  One of the fascinating factoids was that 60% of facial care customers would research a product online AFTER they had purchased it to learn more about what others thought of it, how they used it and that post purchase research would then have an impact on their loyalty and advocacy of the brand. 

Another great quote was "Up to 90% of spend goes to advertising and retail promotions. Yet the single most powerful impetus to buy is often someone else's advocacy."