In 2009 a motley crew of designers, engineers and pixel junkies set out with a vision to build a social travel guide — a passport designed for a new generation of people on the go. We called it Gowalla. In the Hindi language it means "One Who Goes."

Two years later over a million people have now visited every country in the world with Gowalla, stopping to tell their story, snap a photo and share the highlights of their journeys to over 3 million places.

Our team is growing, and we're looking for the brightest engineers, designers and evangelists to help us inspire the world to go out. Our product team is located in Austin, Texas — a city as unique and diverse as the people who work here. We're also opening an international operations studio in London's Silicon Roundabout. It's the Brit's cheeky name for where the innovative tech stuff happens.

Though some of our team is native to Austin, most of us have moved from other places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pittsburg and Kansas City — even a couple crazy Europeans have joined us from Brussels and Hamburg. If you're eager to join us in Austin, we'll help make the transition as easy as possible. We hire the best, regardless of current location.

We're also looking for inspiring local travel writers in the best cities around the world for freelance assignments. Be sure to check up on our current listings to see where we have need.

Gowalla is vibrant and fast-paced environment where developers work in concert with designers to create the Gowalla website, Gowalla API and the Gowalla mobile clients including our applications for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, and webOS.

• We believe in brilliant product design
• We believe in clean, articulate code
• We believe in open and transparent communication
• We believe opinionated debate creates greatness, however
• We believe ego destroys good judgement
• We believe Real Artists Ship

We have all made sacrifices of varying degrees in order to build something remarkable in Austin. As such, these simple benefits are offered to all team members in order to provide a lively, productive and rewarding place to work.

• Employee stock plan
• Employee medical insurance plan (for you and your family)
• New MacBook Pro and Cinema Display
• New iPhone and plan reimbursement
• Cheap desks & Nice chairs
• Lunches catered daily by one of Austin’s renowned eateries
• Microbrew-stocked fridge ready for Friday afternoon debate

Gowalla is located in Downtown Austin near Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop, Whole Foods and the bustling nightlife of West 6th Street.

You will assume primary responsibility for Gowalla's award-winning iPhone client. Your mandate is to make Gowalla for iPhone the standard by which all similar apps are judged -- it should have flawless visuals, uncompromising performance, innovative UI, and deep integration with the platform. You'll be supported by some of the best UI designers and icon artists in the industry, and have a great deal of latitude in determining the product's roadmap. The position is full-time, on-site in Austin.

Requirements:

• Strong, real-world iOS development experience
• Demonstrable ability to ship user-facing code, with high-quality apps in the App Store
• Strong design sense: understand the HIG, and when to bend the rules
• Familiarity with REST service integration, HTTP caching concepts, etc.
• Experience with test-driven development
• Appreciation for elegant code, as well as the quick ‘n’ dirty hack
• Involvement in open source projects a plus
• Strong written & verbal communication skills
• Other mobile platform experience (especially Android) a plus
• Ability to work on-site full-time in Austin

You will assume primary responsibility for Gowalla's Android client. Gowalla for Android is more than a port of the original iPhone app -- it should embrace the unique strengths of the platform. So you won't just be implementing features, but helping to determine the product direction for the platform. If you're excited by the opportunity to build a stand-out, in-demand app for a hot platform, this is the gig for you. The position is full-time, on-site in Austin.

Requirements:

• Real-world Java experience, as well as breadth of language experience. Mobile (especially Android) is a plus.
• Demonstrable ability to ship user-facing code
• Strong design sense
• Experience with test-driven development
• Familiarity with REST service integration, HTTP caching concepts, etc.
• Appreciation for elegant code, as well as the quick ‘n’ dirty hack
• Involvement in open source projects
• Strong verbal & written communication skills

You will work on Gowalla's server-side application, from the datastore through the REST API interface and website. You'll evolve an existing HTTP/JSON API to serve both internal clients (like the iPhone app) and external users. You'll work with designers to implement new features, and work with the growth team to measure the success of the application. You should be comfortable analyzing trade-offs involving performance, reliability, and simplicity. The position is full-time, on-site in Austin.

Requirements:

• Sharp intuition for how design choices will affect scalability
• Strong understanding of REST concepts and HTTP caching
• 2+ years Ruby experience; breadth of language experience a plus
• Familiarity with non-relational databases
• Proven experience scaling to tens of millions of daily page views
• Appreciation for elegance, as well as the quick ‘n’ dirty hack
• Involvement in open source projects
• Strong verbal & written communication skills

Email jobs@gowalla.com and introduce yourself.