Careers at Alexa

Alexa Internet is a growing and dynamic company, staffed by some of the smartest people in the industry. Alexa has been gathering, analyzing, and reporting on internet data for over 13 years. We have millions of toolbar users in countries around the world, and we receive over 6 million unique website visitors per month. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, a career at Alexa presents an extraordinary combination: the fun and challenge of a fast-paced, startup-like culture, balanced by the stability and rewards of working for an established corporation. Plus, we are located in a place of unparalleled beauty: the Presidio of San Francisco.

User Interface Designer

Alexa Internet is seeking a talented visual designer to help us envision user interfaces for our next generation of Web-based products. We are looking for a highly motivated person with proven visual design skills to help translate business goals into innovative user interface designs to support millions of Alexa users.

Candidates must provide a strong online portfolio that demonstrates superior visual design skills for Web-based applications and translating creative concepts into high-quality design deliverables. Candidates must have a strong individual sense of aesthetics and be able to bring cool, stylish, high-quality design concepts to the table.

Responsibilities include:

  • Work with product managers and design team members to create visual designs for various Web site features, products and applications, widgets, and toolbars.
  • Design and optimize marketing landing pages and Web banners.
  • Provide "production-ready" graphics for various Engineering teams.

Qualified candidates possess:

  • Minimum 3-5 years industry experience providing visual design solutions for Web and software applications
  • A strong online portfolio demonstrating a critical eye for typography, layout, and color
  • Ability to work with highly technical teams and handle multiple projects in a fast-paced environment
  • Fluency in best practices for Web-based information architecture and user-centered design principles
  • Strong interest in the user's everyday needs and being an advocate for all users
  • Bachelor's degree in graphic design, Web design, or other equivalent professional experience
  • Great attitude and the ability to handle change
  • Coding skills are not required but can be helpful

To apply for this position, submit your résumé and online portfolio to careers-ucd@alexa.com.

Front End Engineer

Alexa Internet is seeking a talented, adaptable, analytical Front End Engineer to develop our website and client-facing software products. We maintain a fast-paced, startup-like culture that values innovation, efficiency, and bias for action. The ideal Front End Engineering candidate is an expert in both client-side and server-side front end production. On the client-side, we require world-class expertise with robust, cross-platform CSS and HTML, and with JavaScript / jQuery. On the server-side, we require experience with developing in the MVC design pattern, specifically with PHP on the Zend framework.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Alexa internet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, and has been gathering, analyzing, and reporting on internet data for over 13 years. Alexa has millions of toolbar users in countries around the world, and receives over 10 million unique website visitors per month. You will participate in the full development cycle, from design, implementation, and testing, to documentation, delivery, and maintenance. We are a major presence in Amazon's EC2, so you will be developing in a cutting edge cloud-computing environment.

Responsibilities:

  • Design and implement front ends for Alexa's large-scale, multi-tiered, low-latency, distributed software products using primarily PHP and JavaScript in a Linux environment
  • Gather business and functional requirements from internal customers and product managers, translate into technical specifications, and build robust, scalable, supportable solutions
  • Own delivery of entire piece of system or application, serve as a key technical resource and/or the technical lead in the full development cycle, using best practice engineering standards
  • Create applications that leverage Amazon Web Services, including EC2, CloudFront, SimpleDB, S3, and SQS

Qualified candidates possess:

  • BS in CS, CE, EE, Math (or related)
  • 1 or more years of experience with the following technologies:

    Markup Languages: HTML, CSS, XML
    Scripting Languages: PHP, Javascript (with jQuery)
    Patterns / Paradigms: MVC (PHP on Zend)
    Operating Systems: Linux/UNIX
    DBMS: MySQL

Send resumes to careers@alexa.com

Operations Engineer

Alexa is seeking a systems engineer or administrator with a solid background in scripting and automation, specifically in Linux and Open Source systems. Alexa has a major presence in Amazon's EC2 and this is a great opportunity to build out a cutting-edge compute cloud architecture.

The Alexa Operations Engineer's primary focus will be on the design, maintenance and iterative improvement of several critical operations services, including change control, configuration management, load balancing, automated virtual host provisioning, and monitoring. The Operations Engineer will also be responsible for run-the-business tasks and regular on-call responsibilities.

The ideal candidate should demonstrate a strong aptitude and passion for learning new technologies and a commitment to ensuring a stable and reliable platform for both internal developers and external customers.

Qualified candidates possess:

  • At least 3 years of recent experience in Unix systems administration or systems management roles in a production architecture for a highly-trafficked internet site
  • At least 1 year of scripting and development skills in one or more of the following: Bash, Perl, C, Python, Ruby
  • Ability to work well within a small, multidisciplinary team environment
  • A general understanding of networking and security
  • Experience with capacity planning and performance measurement tools and reporting
  • Experience in designing and implementing solutions for a large installed base of servers
  • Familiarity with operational tools (Nagios, etc.) and 24x7 support processes and policies
  • Proven technical troubleshooting experience and a talent for solving hard problems
  • Ability to learn technical concepts quickly with a strong sense of urgency
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering or equivalent experience

To apply for this position, submit your résumé and online portfolio to careers-ops@alexa.com.