Full Stack Engineer - CTO Path

StarPlan; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity as part of the founding team

Ownership of technical direction

Path to CTO position

Job summary

StarPlan is looking for a founding engineer in Melbourne to shape technical decisions and lead a growing team. You'll own the architecture and product direction, focusing on developing solutions for elderly Australians. Requires strong experience in full-stack development, particularly with Next.js, React, TypeScript, and voice AI. Compensation includes a competitive salary and equity, along with a clear trajectory from engineering lead to CTO. Join us to impact lives positively through innovative technology.

Qualifications

• Led an engineering team and set technical standards.
• 5+ years of experience with production-level Next.js, React, and TypeScript.
• High autonomy and capacity to define problems and ship solutions.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction and architecture.
• Make decisions on vendor selection and build versus buy.
• Lead the engineering team as it grows.

Skills

Full-stack development experience

Strong frontend aesthetic sense

Experience with TypeScript

Voice AI or conversational AI experience

Design taste in UI

Experience with React Native / Expo

Experience in health tech or regulated industries

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Job description

This is a founding engineering role with a genuine path to CTO. Our Client have an interim CTO transitioning to advisory, and two engineers already shipping on the voice pipeline and data platform.

About the Role

You’ll own the technical direction — architecture, stack, and the decisions that shape how the products scale. As the team grows, you’ll lead it. We’re looking for someone who wants that responsibility and is ready for it.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction.
• Make architecture choices, vendor selection, and build-versus-buy decisions.
• Work with an advisory board with deep technical and health sector expertise.
• Form views, articulate tradeoffs, and move with conviction once decisions are made.

Qualifications

• Led an engineering team — hired, managed, and set technical standards.
• 5+ years full-stack — production Next.js, React, and TypeScript.
• Strong frontend instinct — you care about how things look and feel, not just whether they work.
• TypeScript at depth — typed schemas, generated types from DB, no any in production.
• Supabase or equivalent — schema design, RLS, multi-tenant auth done correctly.
• AI-native — LLMs, RAG, embeddings, prompt engineering in production systems.
• Shipped consumer products — real people use them today.
• High autonomy, low process — you find the work, define the problem, ship the solution.

Required Skills

• Design taste — can ship polished UI without a designer. Our users are elderly and their family carers; the product needs to feel trustworthy, not just functional.
• React Native / Expo — mobile starts Month 3, and you’ll lead it.
• Voice AI or conversational AI in production.
• Health tech, regulated industry, or privacy-sensitive data at scale.
• AI-assisted development workflow (Claude Code, Cursor) — we use this heavily.

Preferred Skills

• Can write a technical strategy memo and present to a non-technical founder.
• Thinks about the engineering organisation you’d build, not just the code you’d write.

Pay range and compensation package

• Salary: Competitive · Discussed at offer based on experience.
• Equity: Available for this role — you are a key part of the founding team. Structure and quantum discussed at offer.
• Ownership: Full technical function. No one above you in engineering. You set the standards, make the calls, hire the team.
• Trajectory: Engineering lead → CTO. Interim CTO transitions to advisory within months. The path is real and near‑term.
• Mission: Your product reaches elderly Australians who live alone, and the family members carrying the weight of their care. Every day.
• Tools: AI-assisted development is first-class here — Claude Code, Cursor, whatever works. We don’t pretend it doesn’t exist.

Equal Opportunity Statement

We are committed to diversity and inclusivity.