Position Overview We're looking for a Staff Full Stack Engineer to lead the design and delivery of complex, integration-heavy platforms. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who can define front-end architecture and technical strategy, lead complex UI systems development, and confidently own large parts of the system end-to-end.
In this role, you will work as a key technical contributor on a cross-functional team, defining standards and best practices, building scalable systems, and solving complex integration challenges. You'll mentor more junior engineers, collaborate closely with senior engineers and leadership, and deliver high-quality work where reliability, performance, and scalability are critical.
Why This Role Matters At Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate.
Every role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on.
What You'll Do Craft & Delivery - Define front-end architecture and technical strategy, designing scalable platforms and leading complex UI systems development (e.g., React, Angular, Next.js, TypeScript)
- Define front-end standards and best practices, and contribute to shared design systems
- Lead back-end development and API architecture, integrating complex systems and third-party platforms (e.g., Node.js, Python)
- Design efficient database schemas and optimize performance across relational and NoSQL systems
- Drive backend performance, scalability, and reliability, and own implementation of security best practices including authentication and authorization
- Lead monitoring, observability, and reliability practices across production systems
- Lead the design and integration of AI services into production full-stack systems, including LLM APIs, streaming, tool and function calling, multi-step agent flows, and RAG patterns
- Bring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude, Cursor, and other modern AI assistants to ship higher-quality work at pace
Collaboration & Communication - Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to align technical decisions with product and business goals
- Communicate complex technical tradeoffs and architectural decisions clearly across engineering and non-engineering stakeholders
- Lead code reviews and design discussions, raising the quality bar for the team
Leadership & Influence - Establish front-end and full-stack engineering standards that lift quality and consistency across the team
- Mentor junior and mid-level engineers, helping them grow their craft, confidence, and impact
- Make architectural decisions with thoughtful consideration of tradeoffs and long-term implications
What You'll Bring - 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with experience leading complex full-stack initiatives
- Deep proficiency in React or Angular with strong JavaScript and TypeScript skills (e.g., React, Angular, Next.js)
- Strong experience with state management
- Strong command of modern CSS frameworks and build tooling
- Strong back-end development and API architecture experience (e.g., Node.js, Python)
- Strong testing practices across unit, integration, and UI testing
- Deep expertise in relational and NoSQL databases, caching, and query optimization
- Strong experience with microservices architecture, event-driven systems, and message queues
- Strong experience with cloud platforms and container orchestration
- Strong experience with CI/CD pipelines
- Strong experience integrating AI services into production full-stack systems, including LLM APIs, streaming, tool and function calling, multi-step agent flows, and RAG patterns
- Comfort working closely with design tools and partners to ship polished, accessible UI (e.g., Figma)
- Demonstrated leadership and technical mentoring experience across a team or organization
- Strong stakeholder communication skills, with the ability to translate technical depth across audiences
- Demonstrable, day-to-day usage and expert knowledge of AI-forward tools such as Claude and Cursor
- Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate highly ambiguous technical and business challenges with sound judgment
Helpful Extras and Unique Skills You'll Do Well Here if You Are - A doer. You see something broken and fix it. You'd rather move on clarity than wait for certainty.
- A fast learner who knows you don't know everything. The AI landscape changes weekly. You're senior enough to know better and curious enough to keep learning anyway.
- Direct in a way that makes the work better. You give honest feedback. You'd rather have the hard conversation than blow smoke.
- Obsessed with craft. You know genius is in the details. You ship exceptional, not perfect, and you don't put your name on work you wouldn't stand behind.
- Built for ownership. You honor commitments, admit mistakes fast, and back your teammates when a decision costs something. No handoffs, no finger-pointing.
- All in. You treat clients' businesses like your own. You take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously.
- Resourceful when the budget, timeline, or team is tight. Constraints don't slow you down. They sharpen you.
- Glad to be in the room with people who care as much as you do. Our teams average fifteen-plus years of experience. We hire people who push each other to do better work.
