Staff Software Engineer, Product

About this role

About the RoleJoin an early-stage public-sector HR technology team as a hands-on Staff Software Engineer, Product. You will set technical direction and build core product experiences across the data model, backend, frontend, and AI systems, helping public-sector organizations manage their workforce more effectively. What You'll DoOwn product features end to end, from data models and APIs through frontend implementation and rollout.

Build AI-powered experiences, including chat interfaces, LLM tool-calling, and ways to present generated insights to non-technical users.

Lead a product pod of 2 to 4 engineers, providing technical direction and mentorship while remaining primarily hands-on.

Create data-rich product experiences for searching, filtering, and normalizing imperfect workforce data.

Raise engineering quality through code review, architecture decisions, and practical standards that support fast delivery.

What We're Looking For7 to 10 years of experience building and shipping software products, including sustained staff-level ownership of a product domain.

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

Experience building production AI or LLM-powered features such as agents, RAG, tool-calling, or streaming.

Experience mentoring engineers as a player-coach and working at startups through periods of high growth.

Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to ask questions and thoughtfully challenge technical decisions.

Experience writing software before AI coding tools existed, and familiarity with modern product development practices.

Experience with tools such as TanStack, Next.js, Drizzle, Vercel AI SDK, VoltAgent, Trigger.dev, Temporal, or similar technologies is valuable.

Compensation & BenefitsAnnual salary: $202,000 to $262,000. Visa sponsorship is available. LocationHybrid, with San Francisco as the primary location. New York City is also a potential work location. San Francisco-based candidates may start remotely before transitioning to an office-based schedule.