shmula

σ business, technology, and stuff in between

Goodbye eBay, Hello Backcountry.com

I resigned from eBay and I’m happily joining Backcountry.

I covered the company in this post back in February 2007.  I was intrigued by the company then and have continued my relationship with them over the years.  I know and respect the management team and I am especially impressed by and attracted to their core values, which they genuinely follow:

• Never compromise in hiring.
• Never accept an asymptote – there’s always a better way; we can always do better.
• Always aspire to create THE BEST customer experience imaginable.
• Focus.
• Say what’s there – do you have an idea or a concern? Speak up.
• Be wary of hubris – we know we are both fallible & destructible.
• Actively solicit advice.
• Relentlessly cut waste and inefficiencies.
• Always confront the brutal facts head on.
• Experiment, be comfortable with risk, but always measure and adjust course based on the results.
• Remember that fast and effective is sometimes preferable to perfection.
• Be intolerant of bureaucracy.
• Welcome change – see it for the growth opportunity it brings.
• Break trail.
• Stand on the shoulders of giants.
• Celebrate mistakes.

Their values fit perfectly with mine and I have never been more eager for an opportunity than I am now.

Why Leave eBay?

eBay clearly has many challenges in its culture and in its business — all of which is very public.  So I won’t go into any details here.

In the simplest terms, I left because my values are more closely aligned with the values of Backcountry and, sometimes, a plant can only thrive when it’s in new soil with more room to breath and grow.  I personally and professionally feel that this move was necessary for me to grow and I find a better fit at Backcountry.  I’m very excited for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Plus, my kids and I snowboard and I was once a professional skateboarder — yup, me — sponsored by Concrete Jungle — no longer around, but, man, those were fun days.  And, in high school, I was amateur sponsored in Surfing by Leroy’z La Jolla, a Surfboard company.  I never made any money, but got free stuff, which was perfect for a poor immigrant kid like I was and am.

Now What?

Now much will change on shmula.com — I’ll still be writing about Lean Thinking, Design Thinking, Customer Experience, Humane Design, Ethnography, Queueing, and Stuff.  I’ll be happily practicing my craft at Backcountry, but I won’t be blogging anything confidential.

For more on Backcountry, please visit Backcountry.com and check out my ajaxified timeline below (click on image, hasn’t been updated in 2 years):

Backcountry is hiring — here’s one position that some of my readers might be interested in (props to James for this; also, don’t send me any resumes, please apply with the link provided):

Are you competitive? Do you train relentlessly to shave a second off your PR? Are you always looking for the next greatest (legal) thing to give you an edge over the competition? Do you like to experiment with unorthodox training methods? Do you find these traits creeping into your personal and professional life? Do you build code the same way bigger, better, faster stronger? If this sounds familiar we need to talk to you. Backcountry.com is growing rapidly, and we are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Fulfillment Team.

In our Distribution Center we take tens of thousands of orders daily, manage hundreds of thousands individual products, and coordinate this with hundreds of the biggest names in the outdoor industry each and every day. Working in these scales, improvements of less than a second can yield savings of thousands of dollars per day. As we continue to grow the opportunities for improvement only get larger. Beyond just cool professional challenges that you wont find anywhere else, you will have the opportunity to work with like-minded engineers who are among the best in the business, have the chance to create innovative solutions with leading edge technology, and do it in the little outdoor playground we like to call Utah. What a better place to play with all that gear!

Fulfillment Engineers have a passion for process engineering/optimization, efficiency, and enabling business success. These engineers will integrate deeply in our warehouse operations and build/integrate technologies to enable our goal of blisteringly fast fulfillment. Creativity, innovation, the ability to suggest and take calculated risk, as well as an ability to fastidiously and rigorously analyze the performance of our systems and processes are hallmarks of this position. Working experience with LEAN methodologies and/or Six Sigma best practices are strongly desired skills. This position will build applications to support the entire fulfillment life-cycle including warehouse operations, distribution, and integration with our commerce, merchandising, and finance systems.

Primary Responsibilities:

Play a key role in software support of large-scale, multi-tiered, distributed software systems.

Gather and translate business and functional requirements into high-quality technical specifications for engineering robust, scalable, and maintainable enhancements to existing systems.

Troubleshoot software issues and create solutions.

Code and Design Reviews.

Mentor Junior Software Developers.

Apply LEAN methodologies to the warehouse operations to increase operational efficiency, decrease inventory overhead, and improve worker productivity.

Required Experience:

Prior experience working with and developing for Distribution/Fulfillment Center Systems and/or Manufacturing Systems.

SCADA.

Deep understanding of ladder logic and PLCs.

BS and/or MS in Computer Science or equivalent.

Three plus years of software development experience.

At least one year of experience involving the development of large-scale, multi-tiered, distributed software systems.

Strong SQL and relational database skills.

Perl and Java language skills are required and experience with C++ and/or C# a plus.

Strong communication and problem solving skills.

Desired Experience:

LEAN/6Sigma process engineering.

Experience developing software for Distribution Center and/or Warehouse operations.

ERP experience Contivo, SAP, Oracle ERP, etc.

Optimization systems, math modeling, and operations research.

RFID.

Previous web based / E-commerce development.

Experience building complex distributed systems, and implementing software in Java and/or C++.

Red Hat Linux operating system experience.

Software support experience.

Perks:

We use the gear we sell all employees are privy to incredible gear deals across a huge range of outdoor sports, action sports, and lifestyle products.

All employees have access to special opportunities with vendors, resorts, resort passes, industry events, etc

Backcountry.com is growing and evolving. All employees have strong opportunity for career advancement and growth.

Considerations:

Applications from Utah or those willing to relocate to Utah will be considered.

Position is based in our Salt Lake City office and may require occasional travel to our Park City location.

Salary based on experience.

Deep gear discounts, industry perks, and employee benefits.

Telecommuting is not desirable.

Please apply online here:

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