A colleague of mine, Carter Cleveland, is looking to fill a few positions at his company, Art.sy, which just raised a $1.25 million round of funding. More info below. Email me off list if interested and I’d be happy to put you in touch.
James
Art.sy Background Info
Art.sy, a fine art discovery site, has raised a $1.25 million round of funding from a pretty prominent list of angel investors, most notably Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Jack Dorsey (creator of Twitter and Square), and Wendi Murdoch, the wife of News Corps. founder and CEO Rupert Murdoch. Leading the round was Thrive Capital’s Josh Kushner…
When it originally launched, the site was simply a place where users could search for and share fine art with each other. You could search for pieces based on its period, style, size, color and price. The site also had an application for Facebook that recommended art to users based on their social graph.
Now, Art.sy is private again and shifting gears to become a bit, well, finer. Founder Carter Cleveland is working on partnerships with high-end art dealers, collectors and galleries to showcase art from up and coming and established artists. To that end, prominent art dealer Larry Gagosian, who owns galleries in New York City, London, Los Angeles, Rome and Athens, has been brought on board as an advisor.
The company, which is aggressively seeking a lead developer as well as a software engineer, VP of Product, and intern, is currently working on an “Art Genome” algorithm, which sounds and feels a lot like Pandora’s “Music Genome.” Where Pandora’s project analyzed musicians, their albums, and their songs to provide relevant recommendations to users, Art.sy’s genome will do the same for fine art…
Lead Developer (NYC)
Art.sy is looking for an extremely passionate, self-motivated, and entrepreneurial Lead Developer to join our core team. This is one of our most senior positions and you will help shape both our cultural DNA and our vision for the future. Your responsibility: turn that vision into code.
We use jQuery on top of Zend (an MVC + OO LAMP framework for PHP), and our artificial intelligence algorithms are in a Java web service. But specific languages aren’t as important to us. Our philosophy is simple: hire the best people – languages are just tools to an end. We are particularly interested in people with diverse passions such as writing, design, machine learning, graph theory, computer vision, non-relational databases, finger painting, stand-up, meditation, and interpretive dancing. You get the idea.
You must:
- Have built and scaled web applications (ideally in an MVC PHP framework).
- Be hungry for a core role with a lot of independence.
- Have cool projects already under your belt that you can point to.
- Enjoy working with teams and feel comfortable in a leadership role.
- Have an appreciation for beautiful design and the user experience.
Senior Software Engineer, Algorithms (NYC)
This is similar to the lead developer position but with a stronger focus on the algorithms that power Art.sy’s Art Genome and core search technology.
You must:
- Have built and scaled web applications.
- Be hungry for a core role with a lot of independence.
- Have cool projects already under your belt that you can point to.
- Have a passion for artificial intelligence, computer vision, or multi-faceted search algorithms.
VP of Product (NYC)
Art.sy is looking for an extremely passionate, self-motivated, and entrepreneurial VP of Product to join our core team. This is one of our most senior positions and you will help shape both our cultural DNA and our vision for the future. Your responsibility: drive our product vision and coordinate its the execution.
You must:
- Have a deep passion for both art and technology.
- Have a strong technical background and understanding of design principles.
- Be hungry for a core role with a lot of independence.
- Worship the user experience and understand how to test and measure it.
- Have strong copywriting and wireframing skills.
Intern (NYC)
Art.sy seeks a smart, motivated intern to assist in several facets of its operations. This position is primarily archival in nature and requires attention to detail, with responsibilities including inventory management, research, and special projects. The intern will also be involved in gallery relationship management, working directly with Art.sy’s gallery partners. Interns who demonstrate their capacity will be given opportunities for increased responsibilities, including a role in the development of our Art Genome Project.
The position starts immediately and is based at Art.sy’s beautiful loft offices in the Union Square area. A commitment of 16-24 hours per week is required, but the exact schedule is flexible. This internship is unpaid, but provides excellent exposure to the inner workings of a high-profile New York startup and Art.sy’s gallery partners, which includes leading New York galleries.
At a minimum, candidates should have completed their junior year of undergraduate studies in art history. College graduates or graduate students in art history are preferred. All candidates should be prepared to work hard in a fast-paced startup environment.