Lead Developer LA — Restaurant OS — Equity Only

Full-time · Fully remote · Hands-on technical leadership
Compensation: Equity only. No salary.

About ZOVU

Restaurants have enough on their plate. Their software should make life easier.

At ZOVU, we're building the Operating System for the modern restaurant. Our vision is one connected platform for Point of Sale, reservations, loyalty, staff tools and the guest experience.

Our partnership model is built around a transaction margin on sales, so our growth is tied to the restaurants we serve.

We're an early-stage, fully remote startup with an existing product in development and plenty of meaningful work ahead. If you enjoy building useful software and helping a team build it well, we'd love to meet you.

The Role

We're looking for an experienced Lead Developer who enjoys writing code, making practical technical decisions and guiding other developers.

You'll lead day-to-day development: turning agreed priorities into well-built features, reviewing implementations, unblocking teammates and helping the team deliver consistently.

You'll work closely with our Head of Engineering, who owns overall engineering direction. You'll own implementation decisions within that direction, contribute to wider technical discussions and make sure important risks reach the right people.

You'll work across the backend and connected web and mobile applications. Strong experience building dependable business software is central to this role, alongside the ability to understand an existing platform and guide its development.

What Excites You

• Building with a Purpose: You want your work to make everyday restaurant operations simpler.
• Staying Close to the Code: You enjoy implementing important features and working through difficult problems yourself.
• Making the Team Stronger: You like helping developers improve their decisions, their code and their independence.
• Having Meaningful Influence: You want a voice in how an early-stage product develops and how the team works.

What Excites Us

• Experience That Shows: You've personally built, shipped and maintained substantial production software. You can explain your contribution and what happened after release.
• Strong Engineering Foundations: You have practical experience building backend services, APIs and database-backed applications, with a clear understanding of how connected systems work together.
• Sound Engineering Judgment: You can understand an existing codebase, explain trade-offs and improve it in manageable steps.
• Useful Code Reviews: You've reviewed other developers' work, given constructive feedback and helped maintain clear standards for code and testing.
• Technical Leadership: You've guided developers, coordinated implementation work and helped teammates solve problems. We value the responsibility you actually carried.
• Clear Communication: You explain technical decisions clearly, collaborate in English and keep a remote team informed about progress, risks and blockers.

Bonus points: Experience with SaaS, business-critical platforms, connected web and mobile products, or software used in hospitality.

What You'll Own

• Hands-on Development: Build and improve important parts of the product, taking work from implementation through testing and release preparation.
• Day-to-Day Technical Guidance: Break requirements into workable tasks, identify dependencies and help developers move forward.
• Code Quality: Lead substantive reviews, encourage maintainable implementations and help the team apply practical testing and documentation standards.
• Mentoring: Give useful feedback and help less experienced developers take greater ownership of their work.
• Problem-Solving: Investigate difficult bugs, coordinate fixes and work with the Head of Engineering to improve product reliability.
• Delivery Visibility: Work with product and design, communicate technical trade-offs and surface risks early enough for the team to act.

What We Offer

• Real Responsibility: A hands-on leadership role in a product already under development.
• Influence over How We Build: Help shape implementation decisions, engineering practices and the way developers collaborate.
• Close Collaboration: Work with our Head of Engineering, founder and product contributors.
• Fully Remote Work: We collaborate across time zones and value clear written communication and dependable follow-through.
• Equity-Only Compensation: This role offers equity, with no salary. The equity allocation and terms must be discussed and agreed before joining.

This is a full-time role. We'll agree practical availability and working arrangements before you join.

The Good Stuff!

• Work People Can Use: Help build tools for restaurant owners, staff and guests.
• Room to Make a Difference: Your decisions can improve both the product and the developers building it.
• A Direct Connection to the Team: Discuss ideas, ask questions and see your contributions take shape.

Life at ZOVU

We're a remote team brought together by a shared ambition: making restaurant software feel connected and easy to use.

We value initiative, honest communication and people who care about the details. Take ownership, share what you know and help the team keep improving.

How to Apply

Apply through this vacancy or send your CV to HR@zovuhq.com, including:

1. Two relevant projects or substantial features you've helped ship. For each, briefly describe the product, your personal contribution, your role in the team and the result. Include an example of hands-on development and an example of guiding other developers; these may come from the same project.
2. Supporting work where available. Share a relevant project, repository or pull request link. If your work is private, provide a non-confidential summary and let us know whether you can offer an authorised private walkthrough.
3. Your practical availability. Include your earliest start date, weekly availability and time zone.
4. Your understanding of the compensation. Confirm that you understand this is an equity-only role with no salary, and flag any conditions you would need to discuss.

Concise, specific examples help us understand your experience.

Let's build software restaurant teams can depend on.