Founding Full-Stack Engineer @ Parrot
About this role
Parrot is hiring a Founding Full-Stack Engineer to join the founding team in San Francisco and build end-to-end features that shape the product, architecture, and learning experience for thousands of learners. This in-person, early-stage role combines mobile, backend, infra, and AI work with meaningful equity and direct impact on a mission-driven product that helps people connect across cultures.
What you'll do
- Work in-person with the founders every day in San Francisco.
- Own large parts of the codebase across mobile, web, backend, infra, and AI.
- Ship full end-to-end product features from backend through UI to deployment.
- Build high-performance mobile experiences in React Native.
- Implement and maintain video streaming and HLS pipelines.
- Develop AI-driven learning experiences using LLMs and audio/video models.
- Build and maintain backend services in Go.
- Design data models, schemas, and performance optimizations.
- Improve developer tooling, CI/CD, and observability.
- Influence foundational architecture, engineering culture, product direction, and UX.
- Move fast while maintaining strong attention to quality, craftsmanship, and reliability.
What Parrot is looking for
- 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.
- Strong TypeScript fundamentals and solid foundations in HTML, CSS, JS, and REST APIs.
- Deep Golang knowledge and experience with at least two compiled languages (e.g., Go, Swift, Java, C++).
- Strong React Native or native iOS/Android frontend experience.
- Experience with PostgreSQL, data modeling, schema design, and performance tuning.
- Familiarity with video streaming (HLS) and building AI/LLM-driven features.
- Comfortable with Unix, git, terminal workflows, and excellent debugging skills (Chrome DevTools, RN profiler, Xcode Instruments).
- Experience with cloud providers (AWS/GCP/Azure/DO), CI/CD (GitHub Actions), profiling, and observability.
- Writes testable code and uses scripting languages (Python, Ruby) for tooling and automation.
- Prior startup or founder experience and a mission-driven, curious, humble, and ambitious mindset.
- Speaks multiple languages or is actively learning a spoken language and is familiar with immersion-first language learning.
- Willing to work full-time in person in San Francisco; Parrot will sponsor when needed.
Company at a glance
Parrot is a YC-backed edtech startup in San Francisco redefining language learning with native content and short-form video, planning multilingual expansion; it has thousands of users and is building an AI-powered learning engine to connect millions of learners and creators.
What happens next
Skip the application pile. I get you in front of the people who decide.
Confirm the fit
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I pitch you to the company
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
A meeting lands on your calendar
When the company wants to meet, I get the call on your calendar. You just show up.
Culture & values
Work in-person with the founders every day in San Francisco.
A small, mission-driven team obsessed with helping people connect across cultures.
A culture that values quality, craftsmanship, and building something people truly love.
People the company looks for are curious, humble, ambitious, transparent, and mission-driven.
The company believes in immersion-first learning, grounded in second-language acquisition research.
The team works full-stack with a focus on building fast, reliable, and delightful experiences.
Cross-functional collaboration across API to UI is emphasized to deliver fast, reliable, and delightful experiences.
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