[London] Songkick is hiring: Head of Data
HEAD OF DATA

Songkick is looking for an experienced developer to lead the data acquisition and processing activities of our small but extremely talented technical team.

We are web startup creating a site for live music fans to make it easier and more fun to discover and go to concerts. This Guardian post (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/apr/02/elevatorpitc...) is a good overview, but there are even more exciting developments underway behind the scenes. We’re 18-months old and growing fast, with a 11-person team (all big live music fans ourselves..) based in Shoreditch, east London.

Backed by experienced investors in web and music companies including Y Combinator, Dan Porter (co-founder, Ticketweb), Stefan Glaenzer (ex-Chairman, Last.fm), and Index Ventures (investments include Skype, MySQL, Last.fm and Viagogo), we are well capitalised for the next 2 years.

This is an opportunity to work on some very hard, very intriguing problems; we are engaged in massive-scale data acquisition and processing. Our CEO and CTO have backgrounds in machine learning which is indicative of the way we approach these challenges.

We’re looking for people with a genuine passion for the disruptive power of the web, and a desire to work in a fast-paced startup environment and share in the excitement of growing a global business.

SALARY + START DATE + PERKS

Competitive salary + generous stock options. Start date ASAP. Perks include monthly concert tickets stipend (use-it-or-lose-it), great location, and charming multi-national colleagues hailing from California to Rio Grande via Bedford and Schwäbisch Hall.

RESPONSIBILITIES

- heading the data acquisition- and processing side of our development operations, providing tools to maintain our comprehensive database of live music information

- developing strategies for data acquisition, storage, quality assurance and processing to support our website and other products

- leading and growing a ‘data team’ within our team of in-house developers:

- motivating individuals and developing their skills

- identifying, and recruiting for, skills gaps

- interacting with outsourced developers to provide datafeed adaptors, web scrapers etc. as necessary

- monitoring our data processing systems and ensuring scalability as demand increases

- Interacting with our quality assurance team to ensure that data-related issues are resolved in a timely fashion

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

- experience providing and scaling an infrastructure from an early stage to maturity to support data intensive web applications and services, ideally within a UNIX/Linux environment

- experience designing and implementing systems to aggregate noisy, ambiguous, heterogeneous data from multiple sources

- experience designing and implementing systems using a combination of automated and manual processes to ensure a high level of data quality

- proven ability to effectively lead, motivate and grow a team of developers

Also a big plus would be experience of:

- agile / lean development practices

- test- and behaviour-driven development

- Ruby on Rails

To apply please send your CV, URLs of cool things you've built / worked on, and a short email introducing yourself to joinsongkick@songkick.com by 31st January 2009. Tell us about the most recent concert you’ve been to if you like!