Working at Stably
Our Mission
Cryptocurrency, DeFi, and blockchain (which we will refer to collectively as crypto going forward) are fundamentally changing the way we store, transact, and interact with value. Crypto has come a long way since the quiet launch of Bitcoin in 2008. Facilitating billions of dollars of transactions per day and enabling the launch of innovative financial services like lending with Compound has given us a glimpse of the future. Today Bitcoin has proven the demand and feasibility of a natively digital financial asset and Ethereum has proven the innovation that an open and decentralized financial system can foster. This is just the beginning of a much broader shift. Over the next decades we will see trillions of dollars in real value migrate onto natively digital open financial systems. Just as the internet revolutionized our relationship with data, so too will crypto revolutionize our relationship with value.
The internet is great at connecting different devices seamlessly over a shared communication layer. It has democratized information and connected billions of people. The internet is powerful because the marginal cost of distribution is negligible. While this is great for information, this is not great for value. If you can easily copy + paste something, it is difficult to create scarcity without the use of a trusted party. This is why money is not that widely used online, and the primary monetization scheme is advertisements that funnel users towards a few value-extraction sinks (e-commerce, subscriptions, etc…). Money is anything but seamless in our digital world and operates based on just a few key players. This is contrasted to “free” software, like blogs, games, videos, etc… things that do not directly require a monetary transaction. These use-cases proliferate because they leverage the low cost data sharing nature of the internet. But with crypto, we are about to see the same proliferation with value.
While we see the potential for a more efficient financial system, we are not there yet. Moving from traditional finance to decentralized finance will not happen overnight, and this is a good thing. Financial systems are extremely risk averse, and with any new technology, there must be a validation and improvement period before it is ready for mainstream adoption. Stably is building stable and robust bridges to enable the slow trickle of funds from traditional financial systems to become a torrent. By bridging the old traditional and new digital financial worlds we enable a smooth transition process as greater adoption takes hold. We believe that digital assets are the future as they bring unparalleled efficiency and composability. We aim to help companies and individuals make the transition from the legacy financial system to the new digital one.
Why Work at Stably?
It’s not every day that a revolution comes knocking (though with the exponential pace of innovation and disruption it’s getting pretty close). If you’ve ever had an interest in shaping the greatest story ever told by humans collectively referred to as “money” then the best time is now. With Bitcoin having paved the path but institutions still hesitant to cross the chasm, disruption is right around the corner. Stably’s mission is to make this chasm as easy to cross as possible. This will be a concerted effort between better developer tools, an ecosystem of easy to use integrations, and educating businesses (and by extension individuals). We cannot do this without a global team of smart, talented, and driven believers. We see that the future of finance is borderless and so are we. No matter where you are, TODAY you have the chance to shape the future of finance.
Our Principles / Culture
Although having diversity in thought is beneficial for problem solving, it is useful to have some shared principles and a framework. This allows everyone to have a common basis for problem solving and cooperation. These principles should evolve over time as the company grows and incorporates new perspectives and learnings.
Question Assumptions
No one knows everything. We often default to an answer because of past experiences or commonly held beliefs. It is our job to question those assumptions when making decisions. Often times we may find that our original assumptions do not hold under the circumstances.
Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is our job to imagine the future, so we can figure out how to get there. This doesn’t mean that you should always stick to your original vision, but it helps to see the possibilities rather than limiting yourself.
Experiment and Iterate
How do you go about making progress when you don’t know what the best thing to do is? Experiment of course! Experimentation can yield surprising and useful insights that we might not have expected. Iterating based on experimental feedback lets you gather even more data and leads you towards better outcomes.
Think in Bets
Nothing we do will have a 100% chance of success. Everything has risk and reward as well as probabilities of different outcomes so it is important to be intentional about making those trade offs.
Have Ownership
In an organization if a single person doesn’t take responsibility for an initiative or product it is easy for diffusion of responsibility to take over. Having ownership means being responsible for driving progress and seeing the initiative through.
Low Context Communication
It is important not just to let yourself be heard, but to let yourself be understood. We all have different contexts and come from different backgrounds so learn to over-communicate. This means writing things down, preemptively answering questions, providing examples, and more.
Learn to Learn
Startups are hard, because doing something new is hard. The most important skill for the company and its individuals is the skill of acquiring new skills along the way. You will always find yourself doing something new, the challenge is picking it up quickly and performing at a high level from day one.
Act With Integrity
The foundation of finance is trust. Trust was how the first currencies developed and trust is the foundation upon any new financial innovation. By conducting ourselves with integrity we show the world that Stably is a company they can trust for the long haul.
Our Tech Stack
- Golang
- Typescript
- Flutter
- ReactJS
- Docker
- VSCode
- AWS
- Agile inspired iterative development
- Focus on quality and maintainability through code reviews and CI
- Focus on testability and reproducibility
- Focus on secure and robust systems
- Serverless-first low dev-ops approach
Engineering at Stably
How do our Principles translate to our engineering culture?
Question Assumptions
- Don’t just pretend to know something or use a framework just because everyone else is, seek to understand the underlying principles behind the decision.
- Your first design instinct may be wrong, it’s worth taking time to plan and prototype big decisions.
Think Big
- What you build today may just be a small feature, but keep in mind how that feature fits into the bigger picture and evolves over time.
Experiment and Iterate
- Often times you may be doing something for the first time, when there’s nothing on Stack Overflow yet, plan out your implementation ahead of time and take an iterative approach.
- Building a product or feature isn’t about getting it right the first time, it’s about taking feedback and iterating. You will almost definitely have to change your initial implementation, so keep that in mind when designing.
Think in Bets
- There are no sure bets in life or startup. You must be conscious of the tradeoffs between resource usage (opportunity cost) and potential benefit. Infrastructure project? How can we get maximum benefit with minimal investment? Keep it simple. New feature? How can we get an iterable MVP that is cheap to roll out to start gathering data?
Have Ownership
- Be proactive, don’t just wait around hoping something will fall into your lap. See a problem? Fix it. Have a suggestion? Don’t wait for a weekly meeting. Something isn’t getting done? Figure out why.
- Think long term. Don’t just get something to work and call it a day, you will have to maintain and own what you wrote, so be mindful of tradeoffs between testability, maintainability, and speed of delivery.
Low Context Communication
- Assume the other person has no idea what you’re talking about. Everyone is focused on different things. Provide plenty of code references or documentation when asking someone a question.
- Raise high quality issues. Don’t just put out a one-liner and wait for people to read your mind. Raising issues is very important, but so is communicating them clearly. The issues you raise should be Stack Overflow quality, not cryptic one-liners.
Learn to Learn
- The only constant is change. This is especially true in engineering where new languages, frameworks, patterns, and best practices evolve over time. While there are some timeless truths there is also much to learn every year.
- Being able to pick up new skills, tools, and practices will allow you to stay relevant and write for the next generation of use-cases.
Act With Integrity
- Own up to your mistakes. Provide a learning experience for the rest of the team rather than shifting blame on to everyone else.
- Raise issues urgently. If you see something, say something. It’s better to catch an issue before a real problem arises or gets bigger.
Further Readings
Our website where you can learn about our products and services!
