We’re the team behind Matrix—the leading project for secure, open decentralised communication and Element— the all-in-one secure chat app for individuals, communities and teams. Our mission is to make messaging as open as email— allowing everyone to choose where their data is hosted, enjoy private conversations and ultimately be in control of their own communication.

We build open alternatives to apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Teams & more. Our early adopters include The French Government, and open source communities like Mozilla, KDE, GNOME and Wikimedia, while we’re working towards gaining traction in personal messaging.

About this role

Element is used for communication by anyone— from privacy-forward consumers, to online communities and enterprise. We believe that private conversations are a fundamental human right, and this role is pivotal to ensuring we deliver on that. In this role, you’ll:

• Start with today: Understand how our multi-device end-to-end encryption works, which provides nation-grade security to all of governments, enterprise and consumers today
• Refine and mature: Iterate on our security features to ensure they're usable, they solve the right problems, and address the right threat models
• Deliver on the future: Our security features don’t just stop at communication. How might we let users sign identity across the internet? What comes after the phone number?

If you have an intellectual curiosity in encryption, decentralisation or identity this role is incredibly rewarding. Our ultimate goal is to provide secure, sovereign communication to everyone where they don’t have to place trust in the hands of any given platform or service provider.

Day to day, you’ll:

• Champion the user, prioritising above all else that our apps are fit for purpose and work delightfully for them
• Ensure we're always reaching for the most impactful things, by stack ranking roadmaps, backlogs and validating ideas and opportunities— turning opinions into data
• Spearhead features & iterations which balance vision, craft, speed and potential
• Be a ‘partner in crime’ for all of product, design and engineering in cross-functional product teams to ideate, kickstart and drive things to the finish line
• Synthesise input from users, internal teams and stakeholders to better understand the needs and wants of our diverse userbase— using this to help inform our product roadmap
• Set & achieve key metrics, laddering team metrics from company goals to ensure alignment and success
• Contribute to product thinking across the org, maximising the impact of all decision making
• Identify our users’ needs before they do— you care just as much about what our users don’t tell us than what they do

Requirements

You might be a good fit if…

• You have a strong track record of shipping products which users love, with bonus points for previously working on messaging products, open source, cryptography/security or identity.
• You have experience using both quantitative and qualitative research methods and know when to reach for which
• You have experience with working with other stakeholders and departments from product marketing, to sales and support
• You collaborate extremely well cross-functionally— understanding how to steer disciplines like engineering, design, product, sales and support to work together towards strategic objectives
• You have experience shipping early and often, working closely with technical leads and delivery managers
• You have technical aptitude. While this isn’t an engineering role, you should be able to untangle technical concepts and inform discussions rooted in technically complex problems.
• You have top-notch organisation and multi-tasking skills, used to meet tight deadlines and handle multiple projects
• You’re equally excited to work on both large projects and addressing smaller issues & nags which add up to a greater sum of impact than their individual parts
• You’re obsessed with raising the quality bar, and the idea of refining proven & powerful technology to be accessible to more people excites you
• You have at least 3+ years of proving your skills in your craft

Why this role?

1. Now is a great time to join: We’re well funded and have rising revenues from a host of interesting customers— from The French Government and Mozilla to others we’re not allowed to talk about yet(!).
2. You’ll work on highly visible projects: Our early adopters are in the tens of millions and almost all of our work is open source and we receive regular feedback from our community of users. We’re figuring out how to best practise ‘open design’ in open source and you’ll be able to help shape that. We also speak regularly at conferences, meetups and talks.
3. You’ll be joining a small mission-led team with a supportive culture. In this role, you’ll work alongside talented engineers, designers, & other senior stakeholders sharpening your skills.

Benefits

Our general approach is to treat people like adults and acknowledge that by being flexible we create an environment for people to do their best work. For more details here is our manifesto. That said specific points that differentiate us include:

• Since our technology is relevant to anything that requires real-time comms, the role provides exposure to a wide range of domains from web and app dev through to VR, VoIP and IoT.
• Generous holiday allowance, private healthcare for you and your family and opportunities for development and progression as we scale.
• Share options in a growing startup and annual bonus
• Family friendly environment; many of the team have small children and we look to accommodate that as best we can.
• People tend to stay with the company for a long time, we take this as a sign that we have a cohesive, supportive culture, that we have engaging challenging work and that people can develop their skills and careers here for the long term.

Element does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, colour, religion, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other reason prohibited by law in provision of employment opportunities and benefits.

We build things for everyone, and we know we can’t succeed without a diverse team. Our hiring process is designed to be respectful and give candidates the best chance to show us what you can do. If we ever fall down on this, please let us know.