We are not reviewing new applications at this time due to our current backlog of articles. Submitted applications will be kept on file and reviewed in the future when more articles are needed.
We ARE looking for experienced video tutorial creators. If interested, please put "Video tutorial" in your subject line and include examples of your work.
Hi there,
- Are you a Ruby, PHP or Python developer?
- Do you love to write in-depth blog posts, but hate promoting them?
- Do you wish you could spend more time writing, but stop yourself because it doesn't pay the bills?
- Do you wish you had an excuse to deep-dive into an interesting topic, and explain it to the world?
...then we have an offer for you!
We're looking for a few developers who'd like to write for us. We'll pay you well ($500/post), and we'll make sure your posts look good and reach the right audience.
This isn't some content-farm BS. We want to build long-term relationships with authors who care about their subject matter and their work.
We also want to encourage members of marginalized communities to apply.
Who shouldn't apply
This may not be the opportunity for you if:
- You don't have any experience using Ruby, PHP or Python at a professional level
- You can't accept payment via PayPal
- You aren't able to write independently, drawing from your own research and experience.
What is Honeybadger?
Honeybadger is an error monitoring company. Our mission is to help developers find and fix bugs quicker. That's why we've always loved putting out high-quality blog posts. You know, the kind that go past the surface of a technology to help you understand how it really works. Because when you're fighting a tough bug nothing beats a well-rounded understanding of the underlying technology.
What are we looking for?
We would like to establish collaborative relationships with authors who love explaining how things work and who make complex topics graspable to beginners.
Audience
Our audience is Ruby/Rails, PHP and Python developers. Though our audience does some front-end work, they skew towards back-end.
Skill level ranges from beginner to advanced. However, one of our missions is to raise people up and help them meet the content. So even with advanced topics we spend time explaining enough of the basics to help people understand.
Topics
A pattern we like to use to generate interesting topics is [big topic] for [platform]. Where:
[big topic]is something a dev might need to know about RIGHT NOW to do their job. examples: DynamoDB, memoization, OAuth.[platform]is either a language (Ruby, PHP, JS) or a popular framework in one of those languages (Rails, Laravel, Node, etc.)
Here are some examples:
- How does AWS's Elastic Beanstalk work, and how to you use it to deploy a Rails application?
- What exactly is unicode and how do you work with it in ruby?
- Everything you need to know about caching in Laravel.
Process
We have a very developer-friendly process for writing.
- Articles are markdown files. We'll provide a GitHub repo for you to use.
- Reviews and edits are done in GitHub issues and pull requests.
- We have good written documentation for each step: submitting a proposal, asking for review, etc.
- There are no strict word requirements (2000 is average)
- No deadlines. You work at your pace.
Compensation
We pay $500 per article, usually within a week of you approving our final edits.
We only pay via PayPal. We'll need to have your PayPal id on file before we accept any article proposals.
Who will you be working with?
You'll be working with Josh Wood and Ben Findley.
Josh is a co-founder at Honeybadger, and Ben Findley is our marketing manager. As a company, we try to approach our work in a way that centers empathy and humanity.
Questions?
Email us. Please give us a few days to reply.
How to apply
Check out our blog to see the kinds of technical content we post.
Then, email us with the following:
- A brief cover letter saying hello, and explaining the kind of things you'd like to write about.
- Two articles about some aspect of application development you've written that you're proud of. Links to blog posts are ok.
While reading the example pieces, we will be looking for:
- Is the author able to make complex things seem simple?
- Is the language used clear and direct?
- Does the writing style seem friendly? Like something I'd voluntarily spend my free time reading?
If it looks like you're a good fit, we'll schedule a call to discuss how we might work together.
Please:
- Give us up to a week to reply to your initial email.
- Don't reach out via channels other than email.
Email us
To get our email address, drop this into an irb console:
puts [[%w[write for us].join('-'), '92ef90c'].join('+'), 'honeybadger.io'].join('@')
(Here's an online irb console in case you don't have Ruby installed.)
Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time to read this. We look forward to hearing from you!
