Principal Full-Stack Engineer & Head of Engineering (Player-Coach)

Principal Full-Stack Engineer & Head of Engineering (Player-Coach)
Compensation: $180-230,000k + equity
Location: Hybrid Bay Area (In-office M/W/F)

Who Are We?

Were a fast-moving startup building a platform already used by over 1.8 million engineers designing the physical products of tomorrow from EVs to drones. Until recently, we were profitable through strong customer traction alone. Now, with backing from top-tier VCs, were scaling rapidly and integrating AI into the core of our product.

This is your chance to shape the future of a mission-critical tool in a trillion-dollar industry, at a company with product-market fit, passionate users, and massive upside.

What's In It for You?

• Founding-level Impact: You'll report directly to the CEO and own everything software architecture, coding, hiring, mentoring, and decision-making.

• Still Hands-On: This is a player-coach role. You'll be building while you lead, with at least 50% of your time spent writing production code.

• Autonomy and Ownership: You'll define engineering direction, tech strategy, and team structure from the ground up.

• Ship Fast, Iterate Smarter: Join a team where speed is a feature and technical debt is a conscious decision, not a reckless one.

• Real User Base: Your work will impact over a million engineers who rely on this platform every day.

• Early-Stage Energy: Move fast, think big, own a massive piece of the puzzle.

What Will You Do?

Technical Responsibilities

• Own all engineering output across a mix of monoliths and microservices.

• Ship features and squash bugs across the full stack (Python, Django, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS).

• Architect and scale infrastructure on platforms like Heroku, AWS, and Azure.

• Tackle tough problems API performance, system reliability, feature velocity, and scalability.

• Review and write technical specs, own engineering metrics, and optimize delivery pipelines.

• Contribute to AI integration and future-proofing the stack.

Leadership & Management

• Recruit and manage engineers across the U.S., Latin America, and Asia.

• Mentor and grow a high-performance team; build the engineering org from scratch.

• Lead sprint planning, set OKRs, and align with product and business goals.

• Collaborate with leadership to scale product delivery and customer satisfaction.

Strategic Vision

• Define long-term infrastructure roadmap and software architecture vision.

• Identify pain points early and build systems that scale smoothly with user growth.

• Act as the voice of engineering in cross-functional planning with Product and Design.

What Will You Need?

Must-Haves

• 5+ years of full-stack engineering experience (hands-on coding within the last 2 years).

• 2+ years leading teams with full product ownership you were the decision maker, not one of several.

• Seed-stage startup experience (<25 employees), owning all software engineering functions solo or as the clear lead.

• Generalist chops across frontend, backend, data, and DevOps (Python/Django/PostgreSQL + Vue/React/Angular).

• Experience with REST APIs, cloud deployment (Heroku, AWS, or Azure), and scalable architectures.

• Bias toward shipping, speed, and pragmatism you don't need a perfect system to make progress.

• Hybrid flexibility must be in the Bay Area and available to work in-office M/W/F.

Deal breakers

• 3+ years at a slow-moving enterprise or large company in your most recent role.

• Consulting/dev shop experience without long-term product ownership.

• Employment gaps or more than two <1-year stints in the past 5 years.

• Only experience at non-VC backed, low-growth startups.

• Only recently moved into a management role and no longer hands-on with code.

Strongly Preferred

• Desktop application development experience.

• Familiarity with AI technologies and/or CAD software.

• Background in electronics, electrical engineering, or circuit design.

• Prior experience leading engineering teams across time zones.

• High-signal pedigree: founder, fast promotions, elite schools, open-source cred, or major side projects.

This Role Is Not For You If...

• You're trying to get out of coding and into pure management.

• You've spent the last few years in slow-moving, heavily siloed environments.

• You want to re-architect everything before shipping.

• You're looking for a 100% remote position or planning to relocate.

This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role for someone who thrives on building, shipping, and scaling. If you're a generalist with deep technical chops, a bias toward action, and experience leading at the earliest stages we want to hear from you.

Ready to shape the future of hardware software? Lets talk.