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Role Description

This is a high-velocity individual contributor role with product ownership — not a people-management position. You set the bar for how fast great Rails code ships, and you do it by being the person who's best at directing AI to multiply output.

• Work with AI like a brilliant but inexperienced junior developer: define the work, decompose it into right-sized pieces, and review output critically.
• Engage directly with stakeholders to determine what needs to be built, not just how to build it.
• Enjoy talking to users, unpacking requirements, making scope calls, and translating business problems into shippable slices.

Qualifications

• Deep Ruby on Rails expertise — you've built and shipped production Rails applications and know the framework inside and out (PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Active Job, etc.)
• Proven AI-assisted development chops — you're already using AI tooling (Cursor, Copilot, or similar) to ship meaningfully faster.
• The "senior who makes juniors productive" skillset — you know how to specify work clearly enough that someone (or something) less experienced can execute it well.
• Product instincts — you enjoy talking to stakeholders, understanding user problems, and making decisions about what to build and what to cut.
• Velocity as a value — you care about shipping and find ways to move fast without cutting corners.
• Strong decomposition skills — you can take a large, ambiguous objective and break it into concrete, well-scoped pieces of work.
• Comfort with startup ambiguity — you thrive when things aren't fully figured out and are energized by the need to make decisions with incomplete information.

Requirements

• Experience in a staff engineer, tech lead, or principal engineer role at a startup or high-growth company.
• Familiarity with spec-driven workflows.
• Experience working without a dedicated product manager — you've been the person who figured out what to build.
• Background in marketplace, SaaS, or consumer-facing Rails applications.
• Experience building or contributing to AI-augmented development workflows at an organizational level.

Benefits

• Flexible title: Can tailor to reflect your skills & experience.
• Flexible time: Can do full-time, part-time, side-gig (off-hours), or fractional (contract).
• Flexible commitment: Can do short-term, long-term, or intermittent.
• Compensation: Up to $300,000 max total compensation in Tier 1 cities; cash and equity components to be negotiated.

Company Description

We're a credible, funded, remote-first startup led by a serial technical founder, and backed by a 20-person team. The product is live in private alpha.