Don’t all rush at once, but this legal cannabis startup is hiring tech staff

OK. So it’s not a tester job, duh, but Confident Cannabis is looking for front and backend developers in San Francisco and this is actually a chance to be part of a pretty cool social experiment, as much as being close to the green stuff.

As legislators across the world, most notably in the US, are taking another look at whether prohibition of weed has ever really made economic or social sense, Silicon Valley startups are doing what they do best – working out how to grab a piece of this growing market.

Confident Cannabis is essentially making getting high “as easy as ordering delivery food,” but rather than mimicking your dodgy local dealer, it’s rapidly adding a lot of value using data.

From individual users in relevant US states, to shops and producers, it’s helping with testing the product, gathering up industry data and setting the standards for what cannabis should be like when it’s legal.

It’s certainly not the first weed-meets-tech-web-thingy out there, Weedmaps launched way back in 2008 to help users share information about medical marijuana suppliers. It’s since professionalized and opened up to recreational users too.

Startups like Eaze and Meadow have also joined the party, both touted as the ‘Uber for’ medical weed and now backed by venture capital.

Now smoking pot is entirely legal for adults in four US states, startups in this area are so legit they have nifty websites and are even making it into things like the Y Combinator accelerator program, like Confident Cannabis did last year.

Its overall mission is to “bring transparency to legal cannabis,” which is really the only way for legislators and the public to understand the impact of legalization.

Many believe bringing drugs overground could break its association with causing mental illness, because potent strains or bad ingredients can be more easily identified, as well as, for obvious reason, its link with the criminal underworld.

Sure, there are concerns about things like the assumption that weed goes hand in hand with tobacco smoking and, ultimately, cancer. But data transparency can only be good thing in helping to give this issue visibility.

The Economist, of all publications, made a great case earlier this year about why prohibition of cannabis, part of the wider war on drugs, is a losing battle.

So, if you love code and cannabis, there’s increasingly a legitimate job for you.