Role

This is our first in-house engineering hire, and it sets the bar for every one after it.

We're not looking for a pair of hands to clear tickets. We need someone who thinks in systems: how the pieces fit, where they'll break, and what to build now so we're not paying for it in six months. You run with high ownership and high autonomy. You scope your own work, make the call, and don't wait for a spec or for permission to fix what's broken. You build hands-on across the stack (React, TypeScript, and Tailwind on the front end, Laravel on the back end, and the cloud and CI/CD that ship it), and you build at a level other engineers learn from.

You're also the in-house anchor for a distributed engineering team. You review their work, set the standards they build to, unblock them, and turn fuzzy direction from leadership into clear, scoped, buildable work. When something is broken or half-built, you don't escalate or wait. You open the repo, fix it, and leave the codebase better than you found it. You're a force multiplier for everyone around you, not just one more contributor.
What You'll Do

• Own full-stack development end-to-end: React, TypeScript, and Tailwind on the front end, Laravel on the back end, and the cloud and CI/CD that ship it
• Think in systems: design how the pieces fit, see where they'll break, and build now to avoid pain later
• Set the technical standard for how we build, and raise the level of the engineers around you
• Be the in-house anchor for a distributed engineering team: review their work, unblock them, and keep quality high across time zones
• Translate fuzzy direction from leadership into clear, scoped, buildable work
• Make the architecture and tooling calls the rest of the team builds on
• Turn product ideas into working features in days, not weeks
• Use AI tooling to move faster across coding, reviews, and reporting
• Leave the codebase better than you found it: refactor, test, and pay down debt as you go

Tech Environment

• Frontend: React, TypeScript, Tailwind, React Query (TanStack Query)
• Backend: Laravel (PHP)
• Cloud & Deployment: GCP, CI/CD pipelines
• Learning Platform: Moodle (nice to have)
• Tooling: AI-assisted dev (e.g. Claude, Cursor or similar)

Note: Experience with this exact stack is a strong advantage, not a hard requirement. If you've shipped full-stack products and shaped how a team builds, you'll be at home here.
What We're Looking For

• Ideally 8+ years building and shipping full-stack web applications in production
• You think in systems, not tickets: you see how the whole thing fits together and where it will break
• High ownership and high autonomy: you don't need a spec or hand-holding to move
• Strong with React, TypeScript, and modern frontend tooling (Tailwind, React Query or similar)
• Solid back-end experience in Laravel, or a comparable framework you can translate from quickly
• You can drop into an unfamiliar or monolithic codebase, find your way around, and refactor, test, and improve it
• Strong with RESTful APIs and the architecture that connects a React front end to a back end
• TDD and automated testing are part of how you work
• You can set technical standards and raise the level of the engineers around you
• Comfortable with cloud services, CI/CD, and agentic coding tools
• You care about outcomes: live product, real usage, systems that don't fall over

Strong Signals

• You've been the first or one of the first engineers somewhere and shaped how the team built
• Built and launched something 0 to 1
• Set architecture or standards that other engineers followed
• Comfortable across frontend and backend, not just one side
• Strong OOP and functional programming fundamentals, with a real sense of the tradeoffs
• Familiar with domain-driven design (DDD) and service-oriented architecture (SOA)
• Reviewed and leveled up other engineers' work, including across time zones
• Startup, solo builder, or high-ownership environment

Not a Fit If

• You can't work onsite in Austin, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
• You need detailed specs or hand-holding to get moving
• You think in tickets, not systems
• You want a narrow lane: frontend-only or backend-only
• You optimize for perfect code over shipped code
• You've only ever been one cog in a large, slow-moving team

Success Looks Like

• How we build is better because you set the standard
• Features ship daily and weekly, not monthly
• The distributed team is faster and sharper because you're reviewing and unblocking them
• Architecture decisions hold up instead of becoming next year's tech debt
• Products that actually get used, with clear impact on growth and revenue

Your First 30 Days

By day 7

• Your dev environment is set up and you've shipped your first change to a core product.
• You understand the product, the codebase, and how the distributed team works.
• You've mapped where the system is solid and where it's fragile.

By day 14

• You're owning a product area end-to-end, frontend through backend.
• You've started reviewing the team's work and raising the bar.
• You've made your first call on architecture or standards.

By day 30

• You navigate the codebase independently and ship at a level others learn from.
• You've set at least one standard or pattern the team now follows.
• You're the person the distributed team and leadership both rely on.
• You've found the biggest systemic risks and started fixing them.

Why Join

• Founding engineer: you shape how engineering works here from day one
• High ownership, high autonomy, low bureaucracy
• Direct line to leadership, product, and the users who depend on it
• Build fast with modern tooling + AI, and set the bar others build to

Screening Process

Intro Call (20 min): Alignment, background, speed check

Build / Systems Exercise (2-4 hours max):

• Take a real product idea, or a messy part of an existing system
• Outline the architecture, how you'd ship it, and what you'd refactor
• Focus: systems thinking, decisions, ownership

Deep Dive (45 min): Walk through your thinking live

Final rounds: A few more conversations with the team before a final decision
Benefits

• Health Coverage: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support you and your family
• 401(k) with Company Match: Competitive match to help you build long-term financial security
• Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need to perform at a high level, no unnecessary constraints
• Ownership & Upside: Compensation is structured to reward impact, with meaningful performance-based upside tied to the success of the products and business
• Build Your Own Lane: Opportunity to take on increasing responsibility, lead initiatives, and shape the direction of the company as it grows

Location

Austin, TX • Full-Time

Onsite in Austin, Texas, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.