Product Engineer; Backend SWE Early Stage​/Startup​/Founder Exp

Job Title

Salary: $130,000 - $150,000

Own and evolve backend systems: scalability, reliability, performance, developer experience Lead core data model work Reduce tech debt and improve critical paths Build tooling and services for content creation, project automation, validations, and documentation Collaborate end-to-end with product and frontend Collaborate with non-technical members of the team (support, growth) Speak directly with Next Work learners in the community

6-10 years of professional engineering experience (Staff Software Engineer level). Will consider 4-5 years if stellar with strong career progression. First or early engineer at a startup with 0-to-1 ownership. Has built something from zero to one. Consistent scope and title progression over time Owned a core product domain (not just features) end-to-end Proactively identifies product or system problems without being told Clear, measurable impact in previous roles Comfortable with ambiguity.

Phrases like "defined the problem," "drove strategy," and "owned the roadmap" should be in their vocabulary. Cross-functional collaborator who has shipped with product and design under real constraints Pragmatic about tradeoffs: build vs. buy, boring tech, fast V1S Recent experience on small or early-stage teams Positive, practical adoption of AI in their workflow Based in Austin or willing to relocate.

5 days a week, in-person at West 6th Street.

RAG experience SEO awareness Graph-based data modeling Prior work at consumer or prosumer companies with a high engineering bar (Linear, Canva, comparable) Backend experience in Go, Node/Type Script Prior EdTech, creator economy, or community platform engineering experience