Senior Product Engineer, React Native + Backend

About the role

Base is a platform designed to foster in-real-life social connection and community for accomplished Members who have built careers, families, and reputations and seek the missing regular, in-person time with peers they genuinely want to know. The gathering is the product, and your role exists to protect the systems that make these connections possible. You will conduct a focused audit and stabilization of a consumer mobile product and its internal admin tool, HomeBase, during a paid 4-week trial where you will quickly understand the system and ship fixes that hold. This engagement is not about building net-new features but about identifying and resolving real architectural and execution risks. The long-term build-and-own leadership seat is intentionally separate from this stabilization-focused contract role.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Audit the React Native + Expo mobile application and the corresponding HomeBase admin flows to surface critical risks.
• Review the backend and API structure, the Postgres data models, and the business logic that governs bookings, guests, cancellations, refunds, credits, and notifications.
• Trace the payment path through Stripe and the automation and data-integration layer to pinpoint fragility and potential silent-failure points.
• Identify technical debt, broken workflows, security gaps, stale code, and areas where tests are missing or insufficient.
• Review Linear project artifacts and compare planned work against what actually shipped to assess delivery fidelity.
• Produce a prioritized technical recovery plan that balances speed, stability, and clarity for non-technical stakeholders.
• Ship one small but meaningful stabilization fix during the trial or supervise its implementation with clear guidance.
• Recommend the exact mix of team roles needed next, such as mobile, backend, data, QA, or design, based on your findings.

Requirements

• Bring senior or staff-level full-stack experience shipping production React Native + TypeScript apps that reach real users.
• Demonstrate strong backend experience building and operating GraphQL APIs on a relational database like Postgres, deployed within a cloud provider environment such as AWS.
• Show hands-on experience with Stripe across subscriptions, refunds, invoices, webhooks, and reconciliation, all integrated into backend services running on AWS in this context.
• Prove you have worked inside messy, partially-migrated, and lightly-tested systems and brought order without freezing delivery or losing momentum.
• Exhibit the ability to make fast, pragmatic judgment calls in unfamiliar code and explain those decisions clearly to a non-technical founder who relies on your expertise.
• Display comfort working productively even when specifications are incomplete or evolving, using judgment to fill gaps responsibly.

Nice to have

• Experience with Metabase or analytics cleanup to surface product and behavioral insights.
• Experience migrating away from NativeBase, NativeWind, or other inconsistent styling systems toward coherent design systems.
• Experience with mobile release pipelines, QA automation, push notifications, and email workflows that reliably reach users.
• Prior startup rescue, code audit, or fractional CTO experience that demonstrates leadership under constraints.
• Direct experience with Expo and EAS builds in production, including manual store submission processes without relying on OTA.
• Experience with Apollo Client and GraphQL on the front end to manage state and data needs.
• Hands-on work with Supabase specifically across Auth, Postgres, and Storage for managing users and assets.
• Experience with automation glue and reverse-ETL using tools like n8n, Hightouch, Airflow, or similar integrations.
• Deep involvement with Stripe in booking, marketplace, or membership contexts that involve complex lifecycle management.
• Mobile observability and E2E testing using tools such as Sentry, PostHog, or Maestro to ensure reliability and performance.
• Additional work migrating away from NativeBase, NativeWind, or inconsistent styling systems to improve maintainability.
• Experience untangling a codebase mid-rewrite where legacy and new trees coexist in production without blocking users.
• Prior startup rescue or code-audit experience that shows an ability to triage risk and communicate tradeoffs.

First Deliverables

• Create a clear codebase map covering the frontend, backend, database, and integrations so stakeholders understand the landscape.
• Surface the top 10 technical and product risks that could threaten stability or growth.
• Distinguish between what is outright broken and what is merely messy or inconsistent.
• Provide an estimate to stabilize HomeBase that is realistic and grounded in findings.
• Outline a hiring plan for the next 30 to 60 days to close critical capability gaps.
• Deliver a recovery roadmap that sequences work based on impact and feasibility.
• Complete a technical debt triage that prioritizes quick wins and foundational improvements.
• Recommend specific architecture changes that reduce fragility and improve maintainability.
• Define test and QA priorities that give the team confidence in changes.
• Ship one stabilization improvement or deliver a verified implementation plan that the team can execute on next.

Practical notes

This is a contract position lasting 4 to 6 weeks, with an option to extend into a broader implementation engagement. The location is fully remote, and the role requires eligibility to work in the United States. Compensation is candidate-proposed, whether on an hourly or weekly basis, to align with the scope and impact of the stabilization work.