Founding Engineer

About the role

This position represents a unique chance to be the inaugural technical leader at a pre-launch B2B SaaS startup. You will partner directly with the founder to build and shape the company's core technology, from architecture to product delivery. This role offers significant ownership and the ability to define engineering standards from the ground up. You will be responsible for taking an idea from a whiteboard to a production-ready system while establishing the technical culture of the company. The work requires a high degree of initiative and the ability to solve ambiguous problems with limited guidance. Your contributions will directly influence the product's trajectory and the long-term success of the business.

Key facts

What you'll do

Take full responsibility for the existing product code and its underlying structure, making improvements and driving its development.

Develop and deploy features across the entire technology stack, utilizing Python, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, WebSockets, and Next.js.

Define and manage the database structure, including creating and maintaining schema changes with Alembic and SQLAlchemy.

Implement and support real-time functionalities using WebSockets to ensure responsive user interactions.

Manage the platform's infrastructure and deployment pipelines on Railway, ensuring stability, scalability, and efficient operation.

Create and maintain automated tests to guarantee software quality, catch regressions, and ensure longevity.

Work closely with the founder to translate product vision into functional software and align technical decisions with business goals.

Establish the technical direction and engineering best practices for the company as its first engineer, setting the foundation for future growth.

Guide and mentor future engineering hires as the team expands, helping to build a strong and cohesive engineering culture.

Contribute to strategic decisions regarding technology selection, architecture trade-offs, and long-term product development.

Collaborate with non-technical stakeholders to gather requirements, clarify needs, and communicate technical constraints effectively.

Optimize application performance and reliability, focusing on delivering a robust and scalable user experience from the start.

Document systems and processes thoroughly to ensure knowledge sharing and maintainability as the company scales.

Act as a technical advisor to the product and business teams, providing insights on feasibility, effort, and technical implications of new features.

Requirements

Possess 5-6 years of full-stack software development experience, with a solid understanding of system architecture for both front-end and back-end.

Demonstrate professional proficiency with Python, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, WebSockets, and modern React frameworks like Next.js.

Have strong SQL capabilities, including experience with designing, querying, and optimizing PostgreSQL databases for performance and scalability.

Experience in designing relational databases and managing schema evolution using Alembic migrations without causing data loss or downtime.

Proven experience building or maintaining applications that use WebSockets for real-time communication, ensuring reliability and low latency.

A track record of writing and maintaining unit and integration tests to ensure code quality, reliability, and confidence in deployments.

Experience deploying and managing applications in cloud environments; familiarity with Railway is beneficial for hitting the ground running.

A proactive and entrepreneurial mindset, comfortable taking initiative, identifying problems, and driving solutions independently.

Experience building products from their initial stages in startup environments, adapting to rapid changes, and handling diverse responsibilities across different domains.

Excellent written and verbal English communication skills for daily collaboration with the founder and other stakeholders.

A strong sense of ownership and accountability for the product's success, treating the startup's outcomes as your own.

The ability to learn new technologies and domains quickly, which is essential for keeping up with the fast pace of a growing startup.

Attention to detail and a commitment to writing clean, maintainable, and well-tested code that stands the test of time.

Nice to have

Familiarity with AI/LLM technologies, such as OpenAI APIs, prompt engineering, or building AI-powered product features to explore future opportunities.

A portfolio of personal projects or side projects that showcase initiative, technical breadth, and the ability to execute ideas independently.

Regular use of AI tools in your daily engineering tasks to enhance productivity and explore new ways of working.

Practical notes

The founder will be traveling to Brazil frequently in the initial months to work closely with the founding engineer to ensure alignment and rapid iteration.

The hiring process includes an initial screening, a pair coding session, a technical interview, and an executive interview to assess both technical and cultural fit.