Backend-Leaning Product Engineer

About this role

ABOUT THE ROLE

We're a small, high-ownership product team in the staffing and recruiting space, building real-world AI and automation products. As a Backend-Leaning Product Engineer, you'll own customer-facing features end-to-end — from design through shipping and iteration — with minimal process overhead and maximum autonomy. You'll work closely with founders and customers in a hybrid San Francisco setting, making meaningful product and engineering trade-offs every day.

This is an ideal role for an early or founding engineer who thrives in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and has a track record of shipping real products — especially 0-to-1 or in messy, integration-heavy contexts.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Own features end-to-end: from ideation and design through implementation, launch, and iteration.

- Make independent product and engineering decisions without heavy PM support.

- Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines.

- Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and third-party services.

- Design workflows and orchestration layers for AI/automation-driven products.

- Debug production issues quickly and exercise strong engineering judgment under pressure.

- Handle full-stack work when required, while maintaining a clear backend ownership focus.

- Collaborate directly with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Required:

- Backend-focused software engineering experience — able to design, implement, and ship customer-facing backend features.

- Demonstrated ownership of the full lifecycle of customer-facing features: ideation, implementation, and feedback loops.

- Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills (product, design, data).

- Must be legally eligible to work in the US without employer sponsorship.

- Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; hybrid/in-office presence required.

Nice to Have:

- Experience in early-stage startup or high-ambiguity environments.

- Systems integration experience with external APIs and third-party services.

- Applied AI experience: agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, LLM-enabled features.

- Python proficiency; modern web/backend stacks are also welcome — engineering quality matters more than a specific stack.

- Founder, co-founder, or founding engineer background.

Not a good fit if you are: frontend-only, data-only or internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research/ML without shipping experience, or primarily motivated by corporate titles and structure.

LOCATION

This role is on-site / hybrid in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be based in SF or open to relocating. Visa sponsorship is not available.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

- Base salary: up to $275,000 depending on experience.

- Equity: meaningful equity stake commensurate with an early-stage hire.

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