company
who we are
HOW DID BORDER STYLO BEGIN?
Border Stylo began as a group of three childhood friends, and has grown into a team of individuals who believe in one another and in celebrating culture on the web. What started as a trio of dreamers in a Burbank apartment, has become a growing team in Los Angeles offices that were once the birthplace of The Simpsons.
WHAT DOES YOUR NAME MEAN?
Our three founders grew up on the border of Mexico and the U.S. Stylo is a made-up word inspired by both English and Spanish to describe a type of style. Border Stylo, pronounced "steel-o," not "style-o," is a way to bridge that cross-culture gap taking the best of both worlds that thrive on the border.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
We want to create technology that adds life to a calculated, digital world. With art inspiring our design and instincts inspiring our function, we seek to add the human component to technology, challenge the status quo, question the current privacy practices and improve your web experience.
WHAT DOES BORDER STYLO DO?
We are a technology company. Our first product is Glass, an add-on for the Mozilla Firefox Browser that creates a virtual canvas over the entire internet. With this canvas, or virtual glass, you can literally place notes on top of any website and share them with whom you choose. This is just the beginning, as soon, you'll be able to place photos, video files, or anything else your heart desires, on top of the websites of your choosing - everything is in context.
ARE YOU ONLY CREATING ADD-ONS?
Currently, we are focused on the Glass add-on, but we have plans to branch out in the future.
WHAT TYPE OF TECHNOLOGY DO YOU USE?
Our engineers and developers dabble with Ruby, Rails, Rspec, Cucumber, JQuery, Javascript, and HTML. Our designers work with Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML and CSS. You can learn more about our arsenal in our team bios.
MANAGERS
THE FOUNDERS
Border Stylo is a collective of friends, brought together by a singular passion for innovation. What began on a soccer field in the border town of Tijuana would eventually spiral out to encompass an entire cast of unique characters. These three friends, a film producer, an operations researcher and an engineer, would form Border Stylo as a living testament to the unbridled imagination and adventurous spirit of the kids they always were.
THE VPs
Together they've brought more than 25 years of experience in software design and development to Border Stylo. They each have had experience in successful online start-ups, ranging from social networks to academic and niche community web portals. In addition, they have had their hands in developing some cutting edge technologies, like one of the first voice-search applications for the iPhone. Individually, they head the engineering and data product divisions, but together they create magic.
DEVELOPERS
GLASS FRONT-END (WEB AND BROWSER CLIENTS)
The extensions team operates the Border Stylo 'Internet Reconnaissance Division' which is responsible for shaping bleeding edge technologies into highly usable browser extensions and web clients. In true utilitarian fashion, the Front-end team weaves JavaScript, markup, XUL, Ruby, and any languages or Open Source tools that prove useful into a cohesive user facing interface for changing the way you command the web.
OPS/BACK-END (SERVICES/API)
When Ops isn't research and developing the next great tech in ops engineering, they make sure the gears and cogs that keep the engines of Glass and Border Stylo running are well-oiled. The Services team is laying the foundation for the storage, reliability, information retrieval, and public API needs of the Glass of the future.
PRODUCT DESIGN
The design team not only designs, they also rock. Their weapons of choice include PSD (+2 strength), AI (+1 dexterity), HTML (+2 wisdom), and CSS (+3 charisma). They've journeyed through the Startup Mountains, Print Design Rapids, as well as the Dungeon of Freelance. They shape the functionality and interface of the product with their elite skills; please show them your appreciation with delicious burritos.
DATA PRODUCTS
Data Products organize raw data from disparate sources and turns it into useful user-facing products, salable packages for third-party clients, and information for better decision-making. They look into hard math problems, research data markets, and write high-performance code. Data Products aspires to resolve the apparent conflicts between users' privacy and useful data products through careful through and powerful cryptography.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
This team does research and development on the next generation of Border Stylo offerings. Currently they are working on providing new levels of security and privacy to our users, and developing new strategies for cross-browser portability of extension code.
MARKETING SUPPORT
The Marketing Support team acts as a liason between the marketing and engineering teams. Having a background in project management and social media, the main objective of this team is to create products that will help you learn about Glass, like our blog. Oren has always had an interest in writing computer programs. In the hot summer of 1991, he created a robot named Itzik on a Commodore 64. Itzik's only purpose in life was doing jumping jacks forever. Here is a demo of that program:
o \o/ /#\ # _|_ _/ \_
BUSINESS...ERS
MARKETING
When the marketing department isn't scrawling on white boards or playing with vending machines, they can be found manning the front lines of communication online and off. From swag to invite requests, conferences to tweetups, this team is busy making sure you know what Glass is and why you should love it, too. They're a creative group made up of transmedia creators and marketers, a ping pong champ, an anatomist turned geek/pro-blogger, and a hooligan. They may also have a penchant for gorillas.
STRATEGY
The Strategy team is a group within the company which harnesses technology trends, the latest news, and the voices of users, developers, and communities in order to allow us to make better decisions. By keeping the Border Stylo team abreast of the latest topics and tendencies within the marketplace, the Strategy team is able to foster the highest-level of collaborative decision-making within our company of engineers, marketers, executives, and investors.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT & QUALITY ASSURANCE
Our Customer Support and QA teams are ready at the push of a contact button. When they aren't busy reading and responding to every bit of feedback, praise, and bug reports that come through - they are vigorously testing Glass deploys and playing detective to get to the bottom of those pesky bugs. Working closely to the engineering department, they bridge the gap between users and developers to ensure the best experience possible. (They also love receiving the occasional joke through the contact forms and finding an Easter egg or two.)
BUSINESS OPS
Our business operations department takes care of the unseen work that's necessary for the Border Stylo ship to keep moving forward. Whether it's building and security concerns, making sure employees have what they need to be productive, getting the equipment necessary for any job, or planning meet-ups and events, this is the little team behind the big team that keeps the engine running.
HR
Our newly formed Human Resources department ensures that Border Stylo creates an environment that allows people to do their best work. We do this by attracting top tier employees, offering a competitive benefits package and fostering an atmosphere of endless opportunities, candid communication and, of course, fun! Above all, Human Resources supports the total Border Stylo operation in meeting its goals through its most valuable resource - its PEOPLE!
CAREERS
We strive to be the best at what we do, so we look for creative thinkers who can openly speak their mind, patiently hear their team members, and always champion the truest ideas.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
Thank you for checking out our current job openings.
If you are interested in applying, please send us your resume, a brief intro about yourself (personality, ideologies, hobbies), and your recent work experience to hiring@borderstylo.com
Hint: Most important to us is a good cover letter. We have a few members who didn't have a CV, but wrote really inspiring e-mails.