Product Engineer — NextWork

Product Engineer — NextWork Location: Austin, TX (Onsite, 5 days/week) Compensation: $130,000 – $150,000 base + equity Experience Level: 6–10 years (4–5 years considered for exceptional candidates) Employment Type: Full-Time About NextWork NextWork is a project-based technical learning platform with more than 200,000 learners across 190+ countries. The platform is built around hands‑on projects using modern AI tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, LangChain, and RAG systems. Learners automatically generate portfolio websites as they complete projects — creating real‑world artifacts instead of certificates. Seed funded, recently relocated from New Zealand to Austin, with a team of approximately seven. About the Role This is a senior product engineering role with end‑to‑end ownership across user‑facing features, backend systems, and core data model architecture. You will work closely with a small, fast‑moving team and speak directly with users and community members to drive engineering decisions based on user outcomes and business impact. What You'll Own Own user‑facing problems end to end from design through production Build, ship, operate, and monitor product features Own and evolve backend systems for scalability, reliability, and performance Lead core data model architecture decisions Reduce technical debt and improve critical product paths Build tooling for content creation, project automation, validations, and documentation Collaborate closely with product, frontend, support, and growth teams Speak directly with users and community members Drive engineering decisions based on user outcomes and business impact Requirements 6–10 years of professional engineering experience (4–5 years considered for exceptional candidates with outstanding progression) First or early engineer experience at a startup with demonstrated 0 to 1 ownership Ownership of a core product domain end to end Strong backend engineering experience Consistent career progression and increasing scope Experience identifying and solving problems independently Clear, measurable impact in previous roles Comfortable operating in ambiguity Recent startup experience Positive adoption of AI tools in daily workflow Austin‑based or willing to relocate Nice to Have RAG experience SEO awareness Graph‑based data modeling Consumer or prosumer product experience Go, Node.js, or TypeScript experience EdTech, creator economy, or community platform experience Target Backgrounds Strong signals include early engineers at startups that successfully scaled, built products from zero to one, clear title and responsibility progression, strong product judgment and user empathy, cross‑functional leadership, and AI‑native workflow adoption. Ideal roles: Product Engineer, Senior Product Engineer, Founding Engineer, Backend Product Engineer, Full Stack Product Engineer, Consumer Product Engineer, or EdTech/Community Platform Engineer. This Role Is NOT For Frequent job hoppers with multiple sub‑12‑month tenures Frontend‑heavy “full stack” profiles without backend ownership Careers spent exclusively at large enterprises Consulting‑heavy backgrounds without product ownership Infrastructure‑only engineers with limited startup experience Interview Process Intro call with Natasha (Founder) Technical interview (60–90 minutes) — real problem‑solving, live coding with AI tools, whiteboard architecture; no LeetCode‑style exercises NextWork questionnaire One‑on‑ones with Amber and team Full‑day Austin onsite Offer Logistics Role is fully onsite in Austin, TX — 5 days/week — please only apply if you can commit to this #J-18808-Ljbffr David Joseph & Company