Fullstack Engineer

• Remote roles across the Asia–Pacific region (Southeast Asia, Australia, Aotearoa NZ, Pacific Islands)
• Daily-rate consultancy | Short and longer-term engagements
• Build thoughtful technology that matters

Catalpa is an Australian not-for-profit working across the Asia–Pacific to improve lives through locally driven solutions. We design creative responses to complex problems, combining technology, behavioural insights and deep contextual understanding.

We bring together people from many disciplines — engineers, designers, economists, researchers and more — to work on projects with real-world impact. Our work is often one‑of‑a‑kind, sometimes ambitious, and genuinely meaningful.

We work remotely across the region from homes, co‑working spaces and a handful of offices. Learn more alpa.io.

As Catalpa’s project pipeline grows, we’re looking for experienced Fullstack Engineers to join our Engineering team — a small, highly capable group building digital products designed for social impact.

You’ll work across multiple projects, contributing at every stage of the software lifecycle: from shaping ideas and architecture through to development, testing and deployment. Our products support work in health, education, infrastructure, transparency and public services, often in complex and resource‑constrained environments.

You’re someone who loves building things — and sweating the details. In this role, you will:

• Contribute to ideation, technical direction and product discussions
• Design, build and maintain full stack web applications and APIs with a strong user‑centric approach
• Bring designs to life with care for interaction, performance and accessibility
• Build and maintain clean, well‑structured backend systems and data models
• Support the deployment and maintenance of multiple live projects
• Collaborate closely with product designers, engineers and project teams
• Improve code quality through testing, automation and thoughtful code reviews
• Iterate based on user feedback and evolving product requirements
• Share knowledge, learn from others and contribute to team capability
• Adapt as projects evolve — because real‑world work always does

You’re a pragmatic, curious engineer who cares about the craft and impact in equal measure. You likely bring:

• A passion for making great products
• 5+ years’ experience of fullstack development experience, including Progressive Web Apps.
• Confidence building maintainable Python / Django applications
• Strong experience with SQL and relational databases
• Comfort working with JavaScript frameworks like Vue.js or React
• Experience building Android applications, either natively or using React Native
• A sharp eye for UI/UX detail, quality and consistency
• Clear communication skills in English and ease collaborating across time zones and cultures (we’re diverse!)
• A relevant degree is welcome — but an interesting alternative path is just as valued.
• Enjoy working in a highly agile, iterative software development process
• Experience using AI dev tools, like Cursor, to craft manageable code for shipping products.

• You care deeply about writing clean, reusable, maintainable code
• You think about performance, accessibility and long‑term sustainability
• You enjoy collaborating across design, QA, product and engineering
• You contribute to technical decisions and feature scoping
• You’re fun to work with, and generous with your knowledge

• Experience with geospatial libraries (Python, Django, Postgre
  
  SQL)
• Experience with Docker or similar deployment tools

We love working with kind, smart people from diverse backgrounds willing to learn new things. This job will require many skills, but feel free to apply even if you think you may not be a ‘perfect fit’.

We work in a creative, supportive environment with colleagues from diverse walks of life, and we value their perspectives. We pay attention to the details and work together to achieve the best outcomes for our communities. Importantly, we work here because we love what we do and the impact we have.

We know people’s lives include many obligations outside of work, so we aim to create a flexible…