Lead Developer

Remote | Full-Time

About our client

Our client is a fast-growing consumer brand making whole-fruit gummy vitamins. We’re a small, high-performing team that punches above our weight — and a big part of that is the technology we build internally.

We’ve developed an AI-powered operating platform that acts as the company’s operational brain — helping our team move faster, stay on-brand, and make better decisions.

This is not experimental. The platform is live, in daily use, and continuously evolving. We are not exploring AI as a concept — we are building and scaling it as core infrastructure.

Why This Role Matters

Our platform works. Now we need someone who can take it from “working” to scalable, reliable, and continuously improving.

This is our first dedicated engineering hire. You won’t be joining a large team — you will be the technical owner of the system. You’ll ship features, improve reliability, and directly shape what gets built next.

The founder defines the vision and priorities. Your role is to execute — turning that vision into high-quality, production-ready software.

This role reports directly to the founder.

How We Build

We build using AI-assisted development tools — primarily Claude Code.

You will not be writing everything from scratch. You will:

Use AI tools to accelerate development
Structure and prompt effectively
Critically review, test, and validate outputs
Ship reliable, production-ready systems

Success in this role depends heavily on your ability to use AI coding tools as a core part of your workflow — not as a side experiment.

What You’ll Own

The full platform: backend APIs, frontend app, data pipelines, AI integrations, infrastructure, and deployments
Production reliability: monitoring, performance, incident response, and cost management
Data pipelines: ingestion, transformation (SQL), and analytics layer
Feature development using AI-assisted workflows
Security and access control: permissions, secrets, logging, and data protection

What You’ll Work On (Near-Term)

Hardening data warehouse pipelines for production
Building new features using AI-assisted development
Extending planning and goal-tracking tools
Integrating additional data sources
Improving observability, error handling, and system stability
Keeping the frontend fast, intuitive, and usable for non-technical users

Key Responsibilities

Ship production-ready code across the stack (Python, TypeScript/React, SQL, infrastructure)
Use AI-assisted tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.) as your primary development workflow
Review and validate AI-generated code before production
Design and maintain APIs, background jobs, and pipelines
Manage cloud infrastructure, deployments, monitoring, and cost
Maintain and evolve the data warehouse and analytics layer
Write tests, manage CI/CD, and ensure system stability
Partner directly with the founder to translate business needs into software
Document systems, decisions, and runbooks to maintain clarity and continuity

Required Qualifications

Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field
Strong programming fundamentals — able to read, debug, and evaluate code across languages
Proficiency in Python and JavaScript/TypeScript (or strong in one with ability to ramp quickly)
Solid SQL skills — querying, schema design, and working with data
Experience building or maintaining production web applications

AI Development (Critical Requirement):

Daily, hands-on experience with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, etc.)
Ability to effectively prompt, structure tasks, and validate outputs
Strong judgment in identifying and correcting AI-generated errors
Proven use of AI tools on real, non-trivial projects

AI Systems Understanding:

Practical understanding of LLMs, prompting, context windows, failure modes, and retrieval
Ability to reason about how AI tools behave and why

Engineering Judgment:

Strong understanding of production systems (testing, monitoring, reliability, performance)
Ability to distinguish between “works locally” and “production-ready”

Other:

Self-directed and resourceful
Clear communicator (able to work with non-technical stakeholders)
Strong written and spoken English

Nice to Have

Experience with React/Next.js, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Docker, CI/CD
Experience with data pipelines, ETL tools, or data warehouses (e.g., dbt)
Exposure to LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
Startup or small-team experience
Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Vercel, Railway, Heroku, etc.)

First 90 Days

Days 1–30: Learn the System

Understand platform architecture (backend, frontend, data, AI, infrastructure)
Set up locally and deploy your first change
Get comfortable with AI-assisted workflows in the codebase
Learn how the team uses the platform day-to-day

Days 31–60: Start Shipping

Deliver meaningful features or fixes from the roadmap
Improve at least one area of reliability (monitoring, performance, stability)
Establish communication and execution rhythm

Days 61–90: Take Ownership

Independently take work from idea to production
Propose and implement improvements
Demonstrate speed and quality using AI-assisted development

Who This Role Is a Great Fit For

A high-agency developer who thrives with ownership and autonomy
Someone excited about AI-assisted development as a core workflow
A builder who values reliable production systems over demos
A pragmatic engineer focused on shipping and iteration
Someone comfortable being the sole developer with direct founder collaboration

Who This Role Is NOT a Fit For

Someone who needs heavy structure, large teams, or detailed specs
Strict frontend-only or backend-only specialists
Engineers unwilling to adopt AI-assisted development workflows
Those who prefer slow, predictable environments
Candidates focused on theoretical AI research over shipping products

Why This Role

Real impact: Build and scale a system used daily to run a real business
True ownership: No layers — you ship and see results directly
AI-native environment: Work at the forefront of AI-assisted software development
Accelerated growth: Full-stack exposure across AI, data, backend, frontend, and infra
Remote & autonomous: Output-driven, flexible work environment

Lead Developer (SA/LATAM/EE) - 18927