Head of Engineering | React | Node.js | Postgres | Player-Coach | Must Have Startup Exp

Head of Engineering | React | Node.js | Postgres | Player-Coach | Must Have Startup ExperienceNon-​negotiable: to have operated in a 10-​25 person company before to be considered for this role!Salary: $210,000 - $260,000 + meaningful equityContract: Permanent Start: ASAPWorking Model: Hybrid - San Francisco, CA (3 days per week in office)Eligibility: Open to candidates with existing US work authorisation only - no sponsorship available🚨 Please only apply if you have ALL of the following 🚨Hands-on engineering leadership in a startup or scaleup (10-30 people)Actively shipping production code in the last 6 monthsFull-stack fluency across React, Node.js, and PostgresProven experience owning engineering execution end-to-endEarly-stage startup experience (non-negotiable)Strong product instinct and data modelling experience🚀 Join a profitable, investor-backed startup solving one of the most important infrastructure problems in the US. You'll be the first engineering leader at a company with real product-market fit, zero customer churn, and a pipeline that's outgrowing the current team. This is not a seat-warming role - it's genuine ownership at the moment it matters most.You'll work directly with the founder, own what ships, and set the architectural direction that defines this product at scale. The team runs lean, moves fast, and uses AI tooling aggressively to out-ship much larger competitors.ℹ️ Very Important NotesThis is a player-coach role - you must be comfortable spending the majority of your time in the codeNot suitable for purely people-focused or process-heavy engineering managersYou will be making real architectural calls that directly shape the product and competitive moatHigh autonomy expected - no playbook exists yet, you'll build itMust-Haves7+ years of engineering experience with recent hands-on codingProven leadership of a distributed engineering team at an early-stage B2B startupFull-stack experience across React, Node.js, Postgres, and AWSStrong data modelling and product-minded engineering approachAbility to align technical decisions with business outcomesExperience interfacing with customers or external stakeholdersLow ego, high ownership mentalityBonus ExperienceBackground in govtech, fintech, healthtech, or regulated industriesFormer founder or founding engineerExperience with Terraform or infrastructure-as-codeProven track record scaling engineering from seed to Series AWhat You'll Be DoingEngineering OwnershipOwn delivery end-to-end - what ships, how fast, how reliablyMake sharp architectural decisions that build and protect the product's competitive moatEnsure delivery is predictable and the team can commit to customer timelines and hit themTeam and ProcessBuild and own the operating system for engineering - code review, on-call, incident response, quality barSelectively grow the team as the business scalesRaise and maintain the hiring bar as you bring new engineers inLeadership and CollaborationPartner directly with the founder on technical strategy and business directionTranslate customer needs into clear technical prioritiesBe the most senior engineer in the room and earn the team's trust through what you shipWhat They're Looking ForA scrappy, technically sharp player-coach with a founder-like mindsetSomeone who thrives on autonomy and gets energy from high-stakes, high-ownership environmentsAn engineer who cares as much about business outcomes as technical eleganceA mission-driven individual genuinely excited by the problem being solvedIf you tick all of the above and are ready to own engineering at a company on a serious growth trajectory, get in touch for a fast response.