Full-Stack Engineering

Job Description:

We're seeking a talented full-stack engineer who embodies our values of resilience, execution focus, and mission-driven innovation. The ideal candidate isn't just a skilled engineer they're a builder who sees beyond code to understand the larger business and human impact of their work.

About Us

Waterlily uses AI to help families prepare for the largest financial and medical event in their lives, long-term care (LTC). Through comprehensive care planning and optimization, Waterlily is bending Americas multi-trillion dollar LTC cost curve.

Our Team & Culture

We've built a high-performance team culture based on three core principles:

Mission-Driven Excellence

• We're deeply committed to transforming how families prepare for long-term care
• Every team member genuinely believes in our mission and understands its importance
• We prioritize work that drives meaningful impact for our customers and company

Be a Potato: Growth & Resilience

• We embrace challenges and adapt quickly - like potatoes that grow under any circumstances
• We make decisions swiftly while remaining thoughtful and open to iteration
• We focus on execution and results rather than just effort, recognizing that input doesn't necessarily equal output
• We value team members who show unlimited potential for growth and understanding

Radical Transparency & Support

• We practice direct, honest communication while maintaining empathy and respect
• Feedback flows freely in all directions - from intern to leadership and back
• We begin meetings with brief check-ins to understand each other's context
• We create safe spaces for vulnerability and authentic collaboration
• We maintain high standards while supporting each other's growth and wellbeing

Our team comprises some of the brightest, most ambitious, playful, and friendly people you'll meet. You'll be working closely with our founding Waterlily team, including Lily, Evan, and Tim, and have direct access to a support team in the Philippines.

• Lily Vittayarukskul , our CEO, is a patented inventor who started college at 14, attending UC Berkeley, was working at NASA when she was 16, and lead product and engineering at IoT medical device startups for years before founding Waterlily.
• Evan Ehrenberg , our COO, is a member of Forbes 30 Under 30, started college at 11, also attending UC Berkeley, and then continued on to his Ph.D. in computational neuroscience at MIT at 16 before dropping out at 21 to found Clara Health, a clinical trials SaaS platform and B2B2C marketplace, which he sold 7 years later before joining Waterlily.
• Our founding engineer and data scientist, Tim Chung , holds a Masters of Computer Science from UPenn and is midway through a Data Science Masters at Georgia Tech. Tim excels in a trio of roles: data scientist, machine learning engineer, and full-stack software engineer. At his previous companies, he led teams to launch pioneering machine learning models.

How We Work

• We optimize for remote-first collaboration while maintaining high productivity
• We emphasize contextual decision-making and practical solutions
• We prioritize deep work and focused execution over unnecessary meetings
• We consistently validate that we're working on the highest-impact initiatives
• We maintain a healthy, growth-oriented mindset while pushing for exceptional results

We're looking for teammates who share our values of integrity, empathy, and intelligent hard work - people who can see beyond their immediate role to understand both company needs and customer impact.

About You •

Growth Mindset & Adaptability

• You're a "potato" - able to grow and thrive under any circumstances
• You have a track record of rapidly learning new technologies and business domains
• You see challenges as opportunities and adapt quickly to changing priorities
• You're comfortable with ambiguity and can make swift, informed decisions

Innovation & Execution

• You have a history of building solutions that challenge traditional approaches
• You can point to specific examples where you've used automation or AI to multiply your impact
• You focus on getting things done rather than achieving perfection on the first try
• You have experience or strong interest in leveraging LLMs and offshore teams as force multipliers

Leadership & Communication

• You give and receive direct feedback with grace and professionalism
• You can clearly explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• You're comfortable leading discussions and driving decisions
• You naturally build trust through transparency and reliable execution

Mission Alignment

• You're drawn to meaningful work that impacts families' lives
• You understand that sustained high performance requires maintaining personal wellbeing
• You're excited about joining a team that values both ambitious goals and sustainable pace
• You're genuinely interested in transforming how families prepare for long-term care

The Ideal Background

While we value potential over experience, you likely have:

• Demonstrated ability to own and deliver full-stack projects end-to-end
• Experience with modern web development frameworks and cloud architecture
• Track record of improving team efficiency through automation and process innovation
• History of taking initiative and driving results without extensive oversight

We're not looking for someone who's done it all before we're looking for someone who has the raw talent and drive to help us pioneer new approaches to software development and team collaboration. If you're excited about pushing boundaries, learning rapidly, and making a real difference in people's lives, we want to talk to you.

About The Role

You will be tasked with owning and scaling mission-critical features across the entire software stack. The goal will be to push beyond industry best-practices in software development by innovating new strategies that leverage LLMs and offshore teams to achieve company-defining results for a fraction of the time and cost of what other companies have previously achieved.

You will be working with our founding US-based team and report directly to our co-founder and COO, Evan Ehrenberg, and you will grow to work with and support the management of a team of 40+ in the Philippines. You will collaborate on new ideas and implement quickly to test and iterate. Many ideas will not work and will be thrown away. Many ideas will need to be imperfect so that we can implement them faster. Everything will be iterative, no challenge will be too ambitious.

You will be challenged to produce meaningful results every week. It will likely take you more than 40 hours per week to drive industry-leading results. We do not think that 80 hour weeks are sustainable or effective in the long run, and so while there may be incredibly important times where we mutually decide to be opportunistic to push ourselves to that amount of work to accomplish something very time sensitive, we expect you to generally limit yourself to 50-60 hour work-weeks. If you want to push harder we will urge you to reflect on ways to be more effective with your time so that you can dedicate your remaining time to benefit your mental and physical health.

We will be in the trenches with you, and together we will create one of the most impactful companies that will help families prepare for what has historically been one of the most devastating times in their lives so that they can face long-term care with confidence and calm.

Key Responsibilities

• Product Driven Customer Success : Your mission is to surprise and delight our customers through product initiatives that go above and beyond to make Waterlily their favorite company to work with.
• Full-Stack Development Leadership : Own and architect mission-critical features across the entire software stack, from frontend React/TypeScript applications to backend Node.js services, ensuring scalable and maintainable solutions that meet enterprise customer needs.
• AI/ML Integration : Design and implement innovative solutions leveraging LLMs and AI technologies to automate workflows, enhance product capabilities, and create novel approaches to software development that surpass traditional industry practices.
• Technical Architecture & Scalability : Develop and maintain AWS serverless architecture while ensuring system reliability, performance, and security at scale as we service Fortune 100 customers and major insurance carriers.
• Product Engineering : Collaborate closely with founders to rapidly prototype, test, and iterate on new features, balancing speed of implementation with code quality to achieve fast market validation.
• Offshore Team Leadership : Work with and support the management of a 40+ person Philippines-based team for QA testing, establishing best practices for collaboration and implementing systems to maximize team efficiency.
• Process Innovation : Pioneer new approaches to software development by combining LLMs, automation tools, and offshore resources to achieve significant improvements in development speed and cost-effectiveness.
• Cross-functional Collaboration : Partner with various departments to identify technical solutions for business challenges, particularly in areas of customer success, sales operations, and marketing automation.
• Technical Documentation : Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for systems, processes, and novel development approaches to enable knowledge sharing and team scaling.

Key Skills & Qualifications

• Technical Expertise :
  • We know that the best engineers will pick up whatever tools they need on the job, but we also need you to hit the ground running, so be ready to learn very fast if you are not already familiar with certain tools in our stack.
  • Preferred Experience:
    • Strong foundation in full-stack development using React, TypeScript, and Node.js
    • Experience with AWS serverless architecture and cloud infrastructure
    • Proficiency in Python for ML/algorithmic implementations
    • Familiarity with modern development tools and practices including version control, CI/CD, and testing frameworks
• AI/LLM Proficiency:
  • Demonstrated experience with LLM integration and prompt engineering
  • Ability to identify opportunities for AI automation and implementation
  • Understanding of AI/ML best practices and limitations
• Leadership & Management :
  • Experience working with distributed teams
  • Strong project management skills with the ability to prioritize and execute on multiple initiatives
  • History of driving technical initiatives from conception to completion
• Problem-Solving & Innovation :
  • Proven ability to tackle complex technical challenges with innovative solutions
  • Experience optimizing development processes and improving team efficiency
  • Track record of implementing creative solutions that challenge traditional approaches
  • Comfort with ambiguity and ability to make decisions with incomplete information
• Communication & Collaboration :
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
  • Experience working directly with customers and external stakeholders
  • Strong documentation skills for both technical and process-related content
• Growth Mindset & Learning Agility :
  • Demonstrated history of rapid skill acquisition and adaptation
  • Eagerness to learn new technologies and methodologies
  • Self-motivated with the ability to work independently
  • Track record of staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies
• Business Acumen :
  • Understanding of startup environments and business priorities
  • Ability to balance technical excellence with business requirements
  • Experience with customer-facing roles or products
  • Knowledge of or interest in healthcare/finance/insurance technology
• Recommended Experience :
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent practical experience)
  • 3+ years of full-stack development experience
  • Demonstrable portfolio of projects or contributions showing technical expertise
  • Experience with modern development workflows and tools

Why Join Us?

• Backed by top VCs: Our largest investor, Insight Partners, is a leading multi-billion dollar global firm renowned for backing innovative companies like Wiz, Calm, and Monday, and helping them grow to become industry leaders. Our Seed round was massively oversubscribed and saw many of our enterprise customers and prospects investing directly.
• Customers Love Us : Check out some of our latest success case studies and customer testimonials and see why our customers love us so much.
• Industry Giants Onboard : After launching in March this year weve already closed 3 Fortune 100 customers, 4 insurance carriers, one of the largest LTC providers in the Midwest, and one of the largest insurance distributors in the US.
• Direct Mentorship and Development from our Co-Founders : Receive guidance and resources to develop your skills and become an operator unlike anything this industry has seen before.
• Growth Opportunities : Learn to run your own product, directly interface with the enterprise executives who are our customers, work across multiple departments, and gain diverse experience that will propel your career forward.
• Impact : Play a key role in shaping the future of our company and making a tangible difference for families across America and the world.
• Dynamic Environment : Work in a fast-paced, innovative startup culture that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

Required Skills:
• Engineering