Lead Engineer (React, Python, Django, TypeScript))

We’re looking for a hands-on Lead Engineer to help shape a modern, AI-augmented engineering organization built for speed, quality, and scale. This is an individual contributor role—not people management—ideal for a senior engineer ready to be the strongest technical voice in the room.What You’ll DoLead architecture and technical direction across backend, frontend, databases, APIs, scalability, and performance.Stay hands-on by solving complex engineering problems and shipping critical product features.Drive technical roadmaps in partnership with Product and Design teams.Define engineering best practices for AI-assisted development, testing, and code review.Mentor and elevate senior engineers through architecture guidance and high-quality feedback.Set the bar for code quality, testing philosophy, and production readiness.What We Need (Non-Negotiables)✅ AI-Forward Builder – Deep daily use of tools like Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or similar to accelerate product delivery with quality. Experience creating AI workflows, agents, configs, or internal tooling is a plus.✅ Product-Focused Engineer – Strong builder of end-user enterprise applications with emphasis on shipping features customers use—not purely infra or backend plumbing.✅ Committed Professional – Proven tenure, ownership mindset, resilience, and ability to build meaningful products over time.Required Tech StackPythonDjango / DRFReactTypeScriptPostgreSQLStrong Plus SkillsDocker, Kubernetes, AWS, Kafka, CI/CD, Jest, Pytest, Playwright, distributed systems.Ideal Background8+ years of full-stack engineering experienceLed architecture decisions and technical standardsStrong code review and engineering judgmentComfortable operating in ambiguity and startup paceExperience mentoring senior engineersStartup/high-growth environment experience preferredCompensation$190K – $230K Base + EquityLocationSan Mateo, CA (Hybrid – 2 days onsite/week)