Founding Full Stack Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

About the Role

An early-stage startup is hiring a Founding Full Stack Engineer to help build its product from the ground up. This role will work closely with the founding team to design, develop, and ship the initial versions of the platform while laying the technical foundation for future growth.

This position offers high ownership, broad responsibility across the stack, and direct impact on product direction, architecture, and engineering culture.

What You’ll Do

• Build the initial product and core features from zero to production

• Design and implement frontend and backend systems with scalability in mind

• Own services, data models, and APIs end to end

• Collaborate directly with founders on product requirements and technical tradeoffs

• Make foundational decisions around architecture, tooling, and infrastructure

• Write clean, maintainable code and establish engineering best practices

• Set up deployment pipelines, monitoring, and basic DevOps workflows

• Help hire and mentor future engineers as the team grows

Tech Environment

The stack is flexible, but commonly includes:

• Frontend: React, TypeScript, Next.js

• Backend: Node.js (Express/NestJS) or Python (Django/FastAPI)

• Databases: PostgreSQL, Redis

• Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS or GCP, Docker, CI/CD

• APIs: REST, GraphQL

• Version Control: Git (GitHub or similar)

What We’re Looking For

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience

• Strong full stack background with modern JavaScript/TypeScript

• Experience building products from early stage through production

• Solid understanding of backend systems, databases, and APIs

• Comfort working with ambiguity and evolving requirements

• Experience owning technical decisions without heavy process

• Prior startup or founding-team experience strongly preferred

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $150,000 – $190,000 (early-stage, San Francisco market)

• Equity: Meaningful founding-level equity stake

• Benefits: Health, dental, vision insurance; flexible PTO

• Work Model: Hybrid or remote-friendly within U.S. time zones

Equal Opportunity

This opportunity is with an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or veteran status.