Job Description

At Help Scout, we’re on a mission to help businesses delight more customers. We’ve been on this journey since 2011, and today more than 12,000 companies use our platform to provide outstanding customer support. We’ve been fully remote from the beginning, and have a team of 140+ people all over the world.

We love crafting beautiful products and growing a business together, but we’re also trying to do something bigger. We’re building a company that brings out your best and leaves the world a better place — a company that seeks balance between profit and purpose. That’s why we’ve been a Certified B Corporation since 2019 and have pledged 1% of our equity back to the community.

Help Scout’s success hinges on hiring talented, high-accountability people who want to be part of creating a culture where we all feel challenged and supported to do our best work. We hope that excites you to join us!

Company values

Happy to Help

Help is our first name. We show up for others, not because we have to, but because we want to. We share knowledge and give freely by default, and operate with generosity and empathy for each other, our customers, and our community. After all, there is no I in team (or software).

Craft over Convention

Although it’s tempting to follow a well-worn path, we push ourselves to run beyond it — even when that sets us apart from our peers. We’re building a culture where it’s safe to be ambitious and hold each other to high standards. That’s why we obsess over the last 10%, because it shows up for our customers and the business in powerful ways.

Progress not Perfection

The work of building a product, culture, and brand is never done – we ship our best effort, listen, iterate, then repeat. Seeking progress requires the vulnerability to be curious, humble, and hungry to learn. Great ideas can come from anywhere, so we share our work openly, welcome the perspective of others, and continuously search for what can be improved.

Own the Outcome 

Ownership is key to our collective success. We consider the impact on our team and our community before we act, and believe that trust and integrity are non-negotiable. To create a better future, our decisions are made with stakeholders today and ten years from now in mind.

Your Impact

As a member of one of our Platform teams, you’ll work on the backbone of innovation, prioritizing scalable and cost-effective solutions to not only meet but exceed the evolving needs of our business and customers.

As a member of one of our Product teams, you’ll build software applications and APIs, creating delightful product features for our customers to either increase their productivity, ensure their customer service is proactive, personalized, and meaningful, or knowledge based.

As a member of our Mobile team, you’ll be enhancing our APIs, mobile apps and SDK products, contributing to the expansion of our mobile platform. These products empower over 11,000 companies around the world to deliver world-class support to their customers.

The ideal engineer for this position enjoys building and collaborating on elegant solutions. You’re keen on the opportunity to tackle both customer and product-oriented problems.

Currently at Help Scout

• We develop in Java, Kotlin, JavaScript and PHP
• We leverage Spring Boot, AWS, Redis, RabbitMQ, Aurora MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• We also use Slack, Jira, Github, Jenkins, Docker, Drone

Time Zone Note

Given that we have remote team members living between European and US time zones, we require that your regular working hours overlap with 9 AM – 1 PM ET to ensure several solid blocks of overlap time with your team members.

About the role

• You’ll work with Java and Kotlin, and collaborate with JVM, JavaScript, and PHP Engineers, project and product managers, and designers within an engineering team of about 50 people.
• You’ll be a part of key decisions on implementation, testing, and backlog prioritization, code reviews, and architectural decisions.
• You’ll participate in an iterative software approach, remote, agile development, and autonomous work in a trust-based environment.
• You’ll provide engineering support focusing on performance, security, and usability, to ensure a magical customer experience.
• You can expect challenges from our product team, and you’ll work with our technically-committed founders to create impactful solutions for businesses globally.
• You’ll partner with our Talent team to help us hire our future team members when needed.

About you

• You’re an engineer motivated by creating software that helps people to deliver outstanding experiences.
• You leverage your expertise in Java, with a required proficiency in Spring Boot, to architect robust and scalable solutions.
• You’re experienced in crafting relevant, customer-focused solutions, enthusiastic about the JVM ecosystem, and comfortable with high traffic volumes.
• You’re friendly, collaborative, and humble, unafraid to ask for help, ready for complex challenges, and confident in your abilities.
• You emphasize personal growth and constructive feedback, believing in improving both yourself and the team.
• You communicate empathetically and collaboratively with both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders, recognizing the importance of clear communication in a remote culture.
• You are considerate in your impact on others, with a thoughtful, flexible approach to mentoring and guiding decisions, leaving codebases better than you found them.
• You are aligned with or excited about the idea of remote teams, having experience or adaptability to remote-friendly work.

About the process

• Recruiter Chat – you’ll meet with someone from the Talent team to review your experience and go over logistics like compensation, benefits, and company culture.
• Tech Screen – you’ll meet with a Tech Lead and an Engineer from the team. This chat will be a deep dive into your technical knowledge, but there won’t be any live-coding or white-boarding on the call.
• Project – we’ll give you a take-home coding project that’s expected to take 4-6 hours. We’ll pay you for your time and provide feedback!
• Final Chat – you’ll chat with your Engineering Coach and someone else on the team, such as an Engineer or Product Manager.
• References – we’ll ask you for three references. Ideally, we’d like two of them to be managers, but we can be flexible.

Compensation

Each role at Help Scout has a pay range aligned to our salary formula and based on national market data. We take a competency-based approach and pay is based on the level and band of your role. We assess leveling during the hiring process for new teammates, during our bi-annual performance review cycles, and when a teammate’s role changes.

Our remote compensation philosophy is not based on the employee’s geographic location. You are paid the same no matter where you live.

The salary range for Software Engineers is $126,000-$147,000.

The salary range for Senior Software Engineers is $156,000-$168,000.

Perks & Benefits

Help Scout offers a variety of perks and benefits to support you and your family. Our offerings include healthcare coverage, wellness resources, and so much more. Visit our careers page to learn more.

Hiring Guidelines:

All of our roles are remote, however, some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Additionally, because Help Scout is a fully remote company and we hire from many countries, we do not sponsor visas. Help Scout teammates need to be authorized to work from their home location.

For our Product Management, Product Design, and Engineering Manager roles, we are only able to hire in the United States.