Senior Full-Stack Engineer (AI SaaS), Potential Long-Term Role

Hi! We're building an AI platform that helps professionals connect with podcast hosts, journalists, PR professionals, and industry experts through intelligent research, matching, and personalized outreach. The founder has previously built and sold two businesses in this industry, including a podcast production agency and a podcast discovery database. We've spent the past 3–4 months developing the initial product with an external agency. We now need an exceptional engineer to take ownership of the existing codebase, improve reliability, and bring the product to launch. What you'll do: - Take over and improve an existing full-stack application. - Build reliable AI workflows connecting LLMs, databases, and third-party APIs. - Fix bugs, improve performance, and handle complex integrations. - Own backend, frontend, deployments, and production reliability. - Turn clear product requirements into working, tested features. Current stack: Next.js, React, TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL, Supabase, Trigger.dev, Render, Sentry, and AI/data APIs. What we're looking for: - 5+ years of professional full-stack development experience. - Strong backend, SQL, and API integration skills. - Experience shipping and maintaining production SaaS products. - Comfortable inheriting unfamiliar code and solving difficult problems independently. - Resourceful, detail-oriented, and proactive with communication. - Experience with AI products, data enrichment, or outreach automation is a major plus. How we work: You'll work directly with the founder, who provides clear product direction and priorities. You'll own technical decisions and implementation. We keep meetings minimal (typically one weekly call) so you can focus on building. Hiring process: 1. Paid test task: A short, practical engineering task (up to 5 hours). 2. Paid two-week contract: Complete one clearly defined, meaningful task in our actual product. 3. Potential full-time role: If we're both happy with the results, transition into a long-term engagement (40 hours/week). To apply: Start your application with the letter "X" so we know you've read the full post. Then share: 1. URLs of 2 projects you've worked on, and specifically what you did on each. 2. An example of a difficult technical problem you solved. 3. Your hourly rate and availability. We're looking for an exceptional engineer who takes ownership, solves problems independently, and consistently ships reliable software.