Overview

Founded by the creator of the YOU DON’T KNOW JACK^® game series, The Jellyvision Lab, Inc. creates virtual teachers, advisors, and salespeople who make online learning and decision making delightful.  In all that we do, our goal is to make complex topics simple and boring material interesting, using a combination of great design, unexpectedly funny content, and serious technology.

Of all the virtual people Jellyvision has created, the tallest and least afraid of bears is ALEX^®, the virtual benefits counselor (www.meetalex.com). ALEX helps companies talk their employees through the tricky choices they’ll have to make, like picking a health insurance plan, deciding how much to put in the 401(k), or whether they might want extra life insurance. Our customers love ALEX because he helps their employees figure out what’s best for their personal situations, which, in turn, saves our customers a boat-load of time and money – everybody wins! As we sell more and more of ALEX, we need more and more non-virtual (i.e., real life) people to keep the product amazing. That’s where you come in.

THAT’S GREAT, BUT WHAT’S THE JOB?
Our bilingual media producer will help make the Spanish-language version of ALEX and manage the delivery of customer-specific versions. Pulling it off involves the following:

• Translation management. You’ll work with our translators to make sure translated content is received on time, then tweak the Spanish content to be as clear, helpful, and delightful as the English is. You’ll also translate small chunks of text yourself.
• Production work. At first, you’ll sign off on others’ work, making sure screen text and audio flow together perfectly. As time goes by you’ll learn how to do it yourself, using software we invented.
• Directing voice talent. You’ll coach our voiceover artists on line reads and record sessions using our in-house tools.
• Version control and customization management. You’ll help ensure that all customer-specific features are built exactly as the customer wishes and that the Spanish and English versions match.
• Organization, communication, tools, and triage. Making versions of ALEX involves a ton of quick yet careful coordination. You’ll need to master several internal tools and work closely with many other departments.
• Getting it perfect and out the door. Then doing it again tomorrow. Our busy season—August, September, and October—is very deadline heavy, with some long nights. Think accountants in tax season, but in a more creative and less accountant-y environment.

WHAT KIND OF SKILLS DO I NEED?
The producer of our dreams doesn’t have to come from any specific background, but some close fits include project management, video production, content management, and editing of any kind.

In general, we don’t care who you are, where you’re from, or what you did, as long as you love making great stuff and hitting deadlines and have the following skills:

• Fluency in reading and writing both Spanish and English. We use neutral Spanish—a mix of Mexican and Cuban dialects—in our Spanish-language product. Our English product uses a conversational yet smart tone (think “informed human you want to be friends with”), often using metaphor and humor to explain and enlighten. You must be able to write and speak both Spanish and English for this position so that you can review translations, translate work yourself, communicate with voice talent, and approve Spanish-language layouts and audio assets.
• Audio first mentality. Audio is at the heart of our product so we need someone who has a firm understanding of the core concepts of audio dynamics (compression), how to clean audio, adjust EQ, and make our conversations sound world class. A strong body of work in sound for video and aesthetic awareness are key to this position.
• Video voodoo. Audio may be at the heart of what we do, but we need someone who can make our product look as fantastic to the eyeballs as it sounds to the eardrums. Prior work with animation and videography helps us see your style. We like style, so show us your style with some samples! Bonus points for work with typography.
• Crystal-clear communication. You need to communicate politely yet efficiently with the many teams who help make ALEX, produce delightful Spanish-language content, and write out detailed specifications for our tech folks to implement.
• Writing skills. You won’t usually make products from scratch, but you will be responsible for making sure translated content has that ALEX charm. We need a clever communicator who’s great at picking up tone.

And you and ALEX will be perfectly in sync if you have these traits:

• Software savvy. You don’t need any particular tech training or experience, but you need to be comfortable with technology and confident that you can quickly learn our internal tools and software. Mostly, you need to be bright, curious, and persistent.
• Detail orientation and a practical mindset. In software, one typo can kick off the self-destruct sequence, and one flawed delivery can make our BFF customers say TTYL. We need perfectionists who can meet deadlines.
• Organization and time management like whoa. Producing work that’s on deadline AND on budget AND perfectly made is a delicate art. It takes a lot of color-coded nested folders to get there.
• Quick learning. We work in the employee benefits world, populated by exciting acronyms like FSA, HSA, HRA, SSNRA, HMO, and PPO. You must quickly pick those up, plus master our complex production process. A track record of learning new subjects fast (benefits or otherwise) would be excellent.
• Moxie. In our fast-paced busy season, the days get long, but they’re made so much better by coworkers who are the bomb at defusing stressful situations. Calmness under pressure, grace in giving and receiving feedback, resilience, self-sufficiency, a sense of humor, problem-solving mastery, and kindness are all key.

SO WHAT’S MY REWARD?
If you love making great content, rocking your to-do list, and improving people’s lives, you’ll love this gig. This role offers the joy of creating a leading-edge product that helps people make important decisions in their lives—and doing it in an environment filled with hilarious, hardworking, kindhearted folks.

ANYTHING ELSE?
Yes. We only hire nice, bright, funny people who are willing to work hard. Jellyvision is a group effort and you must be capable of working collaboratively with creative, technical, and external client types. Everyone at Jellyvision shares a commitment to excellence and a desire to work in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere.

ARE THERE ANY PERKS? Yes, we love perks.

• Competitive pay, stock options and benefits.  401(k) with matching.  And we pay 100% of the cost of premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for our employees (as long as you qualify for our tobacco-free discount; if you’re a tobacco user, your medical premiums will be higher than $0). We also cover a really nice chunk of the cost of premiums for spouse/partner/dependent medical, dental and vision insurance.
• Casual dress and a flexible schedule.  Come in a sweatshirt, jeans, whatever, like everyone else here.
• Creative work environment. We are lucky to work in a place that is full of intelligent, talented and innovative folks. Although most hours the place is deathly quiet (we’re a focused bunch), this is punctuated with hilarious outbursts and general merriment, which makes a nice way to spend the day.
• Easy transportation. We’re really close to the “L” and the Halsted (#8) bus (right by the new Apple Store and Mega Whole Foods if that’s your kind of thing), and we have a transit FSA that allows you to dedicate pre-tax dollars to public transportation expenses.  Since a number of our employees like to bike to work, we also have showers and lockers in the office.
• Did we mention our yoga class?  We bring a pro instructor right to the office. Fully subsidized by Jellyvision and fully optional, btw.
• Oh! And you should know that we have a massage chair. And not just any massage chair, my friend.  It’s the HumanTouch HT 5320 WholeBody™ Massage Chair. Feeling a little stiff? Sit down. Relax. Feel better? Good. Okay, back to work.
• Free food. Every week, we stock our kitchen with free healthy snack foods, and we have a “hot lunch” catered once a week to give people a reason to hang out and eat together.

INTERESTED? 

Here’s what we need from you:
1) Your resume.
2) A thoughtful cover letter that outlines why you’re right for this job, explains your Spanish-language skills, and gives us a sense of who you are. Writing is the key to everything we do, and we weigh cover letters heavily.
3) Any samples of your previous work you can share!

If you decide to apply, please know that every complete application will be carefully reviewed. Seriously! We know it is a time commitment to prepare an application, and we respect that effort by thoughtfully reviewing every complete application and responding one way or the other. But that kind of thoughtful review means that it sometimes takes us awhile to get back to applicants, so please NO PHONE CALLS. The time we spend responding to phone calls and emails inquiring about where we are in the process is time that we could be spending actually moving the process along – so please be patient with us!