Folks, Unbxd blog has moved to a different address at: http://unbxd.com/blog
Hope to see you there!
Unbxd is Hiring!
Do you feel burdened by the big-company processes that disable you rather than enable you? Do you live by code as well as the Code of Turmoil? Do you feel that the rules of HR don’t apply to you? Do you want to be the CEO of our own job? If you answered yes, then we want to talk to you, because at Unbxd, we play harder.
We expect that people who join Unbxd:
- Are open minded towards problems, solutions and towards each other.
- Have extreme attention to detail.
- Are committed to delivering high quality software and infrastructure.
- Have the ability to work independently without close supervision and yet be a team player.
You’ll be working with a small close-knit team that has experienced working at successful start-ups. Members have had leadership roles in building enterprise-class products from scratch. It is a team with diverse backgrounds, interests and engineering experiences ranging from application engineers, UI guys to kernel and file-systems hackers.
We’re interested in recruiting for the following roles.
Frontend Engineer
As a Frontend engineer at Unbxd, you’ll be developing effective user-interfaces for Unbxd Search and Analytics cloud. This will involve working with technology and business leadership to define the user experiences for our customers and then leading the development of the interfaces.
We’re looking for people who have:
- Passion and talent for building enriching user experiences.
- Experience in JavaScript, DOM Scripting, CSS and HTML5.
- Deep debugging skills on all major browsers.
- Experience in developing and maintaining enterprise quality codebases.
- Extensive knowledge of HTML, CSS, javascript, object oriented programming and RESTful APIs.
- Experience in building fast, scalable, complex web applications using libraries.
- Experience with javascript frameworks like jquery, EXTJS (or YUI, GWT etc.)
- Knowledge of using and developing on Linux.
Web Application Engineer
As a Web Application Engineer, you will build the Unbxd Search and Analytics Cloud from ground-up. It will involve working with technology and business leadership to define, develop and deliver the cloud applications infrastructure which will power the Unbxd Search Cloud.
We’re looking for people who:
- Understand the best of two worlds, web applications development and systems thinking in order to build complex, scalable server products.
- Understand the multiple layers, components and algorithms that need to go into building a scalable cloud from the ground up.
- Write well architectured clean object oriented code.
- Have extensive Java and J2EE development experience, on complex multi-tier web-based business applications.
- Have knowledge and experience of working on Hibernate, Struts, Ant, SQL, Web services, SSO and client side programming.
- Have experience in working with libraries like zookeeper to maintain configuration information and provide distributed synchronization and group services.
- Have experience of developing and deploying applications on public and private clouds.
- Have knowledge of using and developing on Linux.
Lucene/Search Engineer
As a Search Engineer, you’ll be responsible for advanced development of Unbxd’s lucene-based search stack. It will involve developing, fine-tuning algorithms and prototyping techniques that will improve the quality and performance of Unbxd Search Cloud.
We’re looking for individuals who:
- Possess strong interest in working on high performance and large scale problems involving structured and unstructured content.
- Understand development, debugging and performance testing in highly concurrent systems. This expertise must be based on Core Java.
- Have strong algorithm design and analysis skills, in general, as well as in the area of text mining and natural language processing.
- Have knowledge of information retrieval using Lucene or similar technologies.
- Have knowledge of using and developing on Linux.
DevOps Engineer
As a DevOps engineer, you’ll be responsible for deploying , orchestrating and maintaining the Unbxd Search Cloud. You’ll also be responsible for providing support to customers and help in translating the customer requirements into cloud deployments.
We’re looking for individuals who:
- Understand Lucene and are able to configure Lucene search.
- Are capable of deploying web applications.
- Have basic knowledge of Javascript, HTML,CSS, javascript frameworks like jquery.
- Have knowledge of Java, J2EE , Object Oriented Programming.
- Have basic understanding of Lucene/Solr or similar technologies.
- Understand database concepts and databases like MS SQL server, MySQL etc.
- Have advanced skills in deploying and administering Linux based systems on private and public clouds.
If any of these roles interest you, please email Prashant at:
prashant AT unbxd DOT com
Site navigation…please go fish!
If you’ve ever tried looking for a product online and haven’t found what you’re looking for, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re among the majority of visitors to e-commerce sites, if we go by some studies although when you don’t find what you need, I can bet these studies are not what you use to console yourself. What you really do is, go elsewhere and try to make your life easier.
Most online retailers are not aware that the site’s user experience is the primary factor for hitting the conversion rate sweet spot. One part of that user experience involves providing a structured product catalog. User experience is a bigger problem among brick-and-mortar retailers who are attempting to take their stores online. It seems that the online product catalog reflects the structured and organised floor organization of products in a brick-and-mortar store. The online retailers, purely online ones as well as those brick-and-mortar ones transitioning to online, perhaps believe that online visitors too would feel comfortable with a structure that is similar to a brick-and-mortar style categories and brands-based organization of the products. The assumption is that a single product navigation structure is relevant for a group as diverse as the visitors to an e-commerce site. Structuring or categorizing products and brands has worked for brick-and-mortar stores simply because of the limitations of floor space and inventory. That does not apply to online stores. My opinion is that such product navigation structures impose on the visitors the online retailer’s view of the product catalog. In some cases, it even imposes the perspective of the engineering teams developing the website.
For eg. all electronics, all mobiles, brand XYZ go into separate categories and sections. These classes do not reflect how the user would sub-consciously try to consume information regarding the products available on the site. Just try searching online for washing machines and see if any site allows differentiating between front-loading and top-loading one. Try it and let me know, I am in the market for one. Am I to assume that the difference does not matter, or to assume that the difference does not matter only to that online store or am I just being too picky?
Even this style of consuming product catalog information on a site changes from purchase to purchase, product to product and even between visits. Every purchase gets structured differently in the visitor’s mind. Visitors bring their own context, their own structure that they have developed in their minds and apply that to any and every site they want to search on. That is, till he or she actually visits the site and is forced to comply with the site’s product navigation structure.
We need to stop developers, product guys and generally any humans to be arbitrators of user experience on a site, at least as far as looking for a product is concerned. We need to let users take control of site navigation and product search. There needs to be a revolt against the algorithmic site navigation structure imposed by business or engineering teams. More importantly, we need innovation in site navigation that does not depend on current paradigm of a) browsing a product catalog or b) site search. Till better solutions are found, E-commerce sites must release their visitors from restrictive site navigation structures and just have search that truly understands the user and gives him or her the freedom to reach products they want.
Unbxd Social Media Presence
So we’re getting around to managing our social media presence better and provide a deeper insight into the company, the products and our culture. Here are the social hubs we’re present on. Please do give us a shout out and share our content further. Thanks!
Twitter: @unbxd
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/unbxd
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/unbxd-inc
Quora: http://www.quora.com/unbxd
Unbxd human search for ecommerce sites
India is currently in the midst of the ecommerce revolution . Growth of ecommerce Business is generating pace for both B2B and B2C industry . Customers can sit in front of computers and they can purchase any thing from any where . So it is very important for search engines to make the search as easy as they can for customers because in the cookie cutter competition of the industry every consumer reaches the product by the advertisement and promotions of the product and services so it is very important that the message should reach to the customers first , In order to reach to every customer , Internet Marketing is the fastest and the greatest way .We hear every now and then that eCommerce is now the next big thing to happen. It has already shown signs of ‘happening’ with the IPO of makemytrip.com and tens of successful multi-million dollar investments into Indian eCommerce companies. Before shedding light on the shortcomings of eCommerce today and how Unbxd fits in, fundamentally let’s ponder on what ecommerce itself is all about. eCommerce is the pre-eminent buzzword of an online business revolution. The concept of e-commerce is all about using the Internet to do business better and faster and use technology to scale to millions of customers in parallel. It is about giving customers controlled access to your product warehouse and letting customers serve themselves. Technology for eCommerce has been one of the primary factors for facilitating such a business model – over years, millions, if not billions of dollars have been pumped by the eCommerce biggies – amazon.com, ebay.com to get the technology right for their eCommerce offerings.
We, as part of Unbxd want to be such a disruptive force in the world of eCommerce technology. Our flagship product is called Unbxd Search which in simple words offers the search functionality on ecommerce sites to provide their customers/visitors with better and quick results. Unbxd Search, acts as a virtual sales person on e-commerce sites always trying to dissect search queries for products and understand the real intent of what the customer is search for, much like a salesperson in flesh and blood.
The search offers the Unbxd Search Box which has auto-completion, assisting users as they type while the search itself adapts it’s autocomplete and search results depending on the way users search and establish searching and buying trends. Unbxd offers web and search analytics for e-commerce sites as well for eCommerce store owners to analyze what items are sold faster, what kind of products should be advertised, provides demographical information about users and their purchase patters, etc.The value that Unbxd Search adds to any e-commerce site is immense – Unbxd Search increased the number of search transactions (buys) by around 8% to 10%. This has translated into a huge revenue boost in an already burgeoning market. Infact, our customers have realized total ROI on revenues to the tune of 1000-1500% year on year which is seen as incredible in the eCommerce world.
More than anything else, Unbxd wants to solve the problem which is largely present in most Indian eCommerce sites – allow users to search effectively and find the items they’re looking for.
