The idea for Hnry started with a couple of contractors from Wellington who realised that the traditional model of self-employment was broken, and hadn’t changed to adapt to modern working styles. Self-employed people are burdened with complex tax systems and responsibilities, effectively punishing them just for being self-employed. Existing solutions like accountants and accounting software only do a small part of the job – the individual still has to take on a lot of the work themselves. There had to be a better way. Surely we could make a service to help people pay tax as soon as they earn; a service that makes sure everyone pays exactly the right amount of tax automatically; and a service that allowed people to never have to worry about receiving hefty fines or penalties?

At Hnry, we want self-employment to be an easy option. Everyone should be able to take advantage of flexible working without having to fear a tax and compliance nightmare.

In designing the service model for Hnry, we’ve worked with tax experts from Big 4 accountancy firms (nice suits), legal experts from the top law firms (even nicer suits), and technology experts from some of New Zealand’s funkiest startups (nice beards/Star Wars t-shirts). We’ve brought together the expertise from all of these areas to create Hnry – New Zealand’s best service for the self-employed. Think of Hnry like a concierge – if you want it all done for you, Hnry will do it with pleasure and a smile.

We’re excited to bring another developer (you?) on to our team.

Our goal is to automate the entire tax/accounting process for the self-employed, from invoicing through to filing tax returns. We’re automating things that have never been automated before, and making everyone’s lives a lot easier along the way.

We’re looking for someone with experience building web apps. You may not yet be comfortable working across the full stack from server configuration to CSS, but you’ll be curious to learn the parts you don’t know.

We follow agile practices, delivering improvements iteratively in small chunks. We track the impact of our work and measure ourselves on results, not the amount of code written.

Our technology platform is built in Ruby on Rails, and we also use AWS (via Terraform), Docker, and a little bit of React.

The very nature of work is constantly changing. We see it every day: stats reported by many organisations saying the global freelance economy is the way of the future; thought leaders from companies who say technology will shape the workforce of tomorrow.

At Hnry, we operate at the forefront of this change. Our customers are contractors and freelancers, working various jobs that range anywhere from tattoo art to IT consulting to event management. We’re looking for a person to keep up on the latest trends in the future of work, compiling a list of thought leaders on the subject and influencers that Hnry can interview for written content (case studies, Q&As, etc.).

Ideally, you’ll have an interest in the future of work and the technological trends that will shape the future of work. In addition, you will ideally have the following:

• Strong research abilities and a determination to get to the bottom of the why and the how
• An ability to communicate ideas, both on paper and in person. Journalism background is a plus.
• A creative thinker, you can see the big picture but think outside of it as well.

This role is primarily Wellington-based, and you’re welcome to work remotely (in Wellington) if you wish.