Lead Full Stack Engineer

WAG is transforming how art and collectibles are valued, managed, and traded. Born from the merger of Winston Art Group (the largest independent appraisal and advisory firm in the U.S.) and Artory (a pioneer in art and collectibles data), we combine deep industry expertise, technology, and white-glove service to modernize a $2.9 trillion global asset class.

We're already generating significant revenue and have raised Series B from top-tier VCs. Now we're building the next-generation platform to unlock liquidity, trust, and intelligence in the art market, and we're looking for exceptional engineers to help us do it.

• Meaningful equity and competitive compensation
• Build at the intersection of art, fintech, and AI
• A collaborative, pragmatic team that values speed, clarity, and technical quality
• Remote-flexible culture with an HQ in NYC
• Trusted by leading collectors, advisors, and institutions

We're hiring a Lead Full Stack Engineer: a senior technical IC who moves fluidly across the stack, with a center of gravity in the backend. In this role, "Lead" defines technical authority and architectural ownership beyond the Senior level, not managerial responsibility. You'll own features end to end, from data model and service design through the API to the UI, spend most of your time on backend systems, and help set fullstack engineering standards as the platform grows.

This is a high-autonomy role on a flat engineering team. You'll report directly to our Head of Engineering, a hands-on technical leader, and work closely with our CPO, designers, and company leadership to prototype, test, and iterate quickly. This isn't about implementing tickets; it's about owning features from conception to production and making smart tradeoffs along the way.

We practice agentic development continuously. Tools like Claude Code and Codex are part of every engineer's daily workflow, and many of our agent skills and playbooks live in our shared repository so the whole team builds on them. This role suits someone who thrives in an early-stage environment, enjoys rapid prototyping and iteration, and believes AI tooling can 10X their output.

• Own end-to-end features across our core platform (React, Type Script, Python, PostgreSQL), from schema design and service logic to API endpoints and, when needed, the UI
• Lead the backend design of the features you own, focusing on reliability, observability, and scaling
• Establish fullstack engineering standards for code organization, testing, API design, and deployment
• Build intelligent interfaces that surface LLM outputs, human-in-the-loop workflows, and real-time data insights
• Lead rapid prototyping for new product ideas and AI-powered features, then ship fast and iterate on real-world feedback
• Make architectural decisions that balance backend performance with frontend polish
• Partner with the Head of Engineering on cross-stack architecture, and communicate technical decisions clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Required

• 7+ years of fullstack engineering experience, with at least 1-2 years in a senior IC or tech lead role at a high-growth startup or product company
• Expert in Python backend development, with production experience building scalable services and APIs; strong in React and Type Script
• Strong PostgreSQL skills: schema design, query optimization, and migrations
• Deep understanding of API design: RESTful patterns, GraphQL, authentication, error handling, and versioning
• Backend infrastructure knowledge: async patterns, queues, caching, monitoring, and basic Dev Ops (Docker, CI/CD, Terraform, AWS)
• Hands-on LLM/AI integration experience (OpenAI, Anthropic, or open-source models), including prompt engineering, streaming…