Staff Software Engineer, Product

About the Role

Join the product engineering team at an early-stage public-sector HR technology company, building AI-powered tools for local government workforce management. As a hands-on technical lead, you will shape architecture and product direction across the full stack while helping a small team deliver trusted, useful software.

What You'll Do

• Own product features from data modeling and API design through frontend development and rollout.

• Build AI-powered experiences, including chat interfaces, tool-calling workflows, and clear ways to present AI-generated insights.

• Lead a product pod of two to four engineers, mentoring teammates while remaining primarily hands-on.

• Create data-rich interfaces for searching, filtering, and making sense of imperfect workforce data.

• Guide architectural decisions, review code, and establish practical engineering standards that support reliable delivery.

What We're Looking For

• Seven to ten years of experience building and shipping software products, including work at startups through periods of significant growth.

• Staff-level technical ownership across a product area, with experience mentoring engineers as a player-coach.

• Frontend-heavy full-stack experience with React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Node.js, Postgres, and API design, including ownership of user experience and interface implementation.

• Experience building production AI or LLM-powered features, such as agents, retrieval-augmented generation, tool-calling, or streaming.

• Experience writing software before AI coding tools became commonplace, plus relevant academic or professional background in the product domain.

• Clear, kind, proactive communication and comfort asking questions, collaborating, and constructively challenging technical decisions.

• Familiarity with TanStack, Next.js, Drizzle, AI development frameworks, and background jobs or durable workflow systems is valuable. Open-source contributions or maintainership are also a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

The annual salary range is $202,000 to $262,000. Visa sponsorship is available.

Location

Hybrid in San Francisco, California. The role may begin remotely before transitioning to an office-based arrangement.