Sigma School – Building the AI-powered learning portal for ASEAN
We’re building the most practical, AI-enhanced, gamified coding education experience in ASEAN.
This role is one of the most important hires on the tech team because you directly shape the platform students use every day.
Role Overview
You’ll architect, build, and ship core features across our learning portal, AI coding buddy, gamification systems, course engine, and backend infrastructure. You’ll work directly with the founder, product lead, and curriculum specialists to create a fast, stable, and delightful learning experience. This is a hands‑on engineering role that also requires good reasoning, strong product sense, and the ability to make thoughtful tradeoffs.
Responsibilities
Core Engineering
- Build features across frontend and backend using React, TypeScript, Next.js, Node/Express
- Implement interactive coding challenges, submission pipelines, and gamified flows
- Integrate AI capabilities (OpenAI, vector search, RAG) into the platform
- Manage Jamstack architectures, API integrations, and micro‑services
- Work with DigitalOcean (Droplets, App Platform, Spaces, Managed Postgres)
- Ensure reliability, performance, caching, monitoring, and security best practices
Technical Ownership
- Propose architecture choices and justify tradeoffs
- Improve developer workflows, repos, CI/CD checks, and coding standards
- Set high code quality standards and maintain consistency across systems
- Work with our curriculum team to translate content into working code features
- Communicate clearly with product, design, and education teams
- Break down problems into simple steps, estimate realistically, and ship
- Mentor junior devs or assist in student sessions when necessary (light, not primary)
Requirements
Technical
- Strong with React, TypeScript, Next.js
- Experience with Node.js / Express
- Comfortable with Jamstack, headless CMS (Payload preferred), API‑first design
- Familiar with DigitalOcean infrastructure
- Strong debugging, problem‑solving, and architectural reasoning
- Good understanding of performance, caching, and secure code patterns
Soft Skills
- Excellent communication – clear, structured, and concise
- Opinionated thinking – you can defend your technical decisions with logic
- Loves continuous learning and stays updated with tools, frameworks, and AI
- Passion for tech education and seeing beginners grow into real developers
Nice to Have
- Experience with AI agents, langchain, embeddings, vector DBs
- Experience with gamification mechanics
- Experience with code execution sandboxes
- Prior work in ed‑tech, coaching, or community‑driven platforms
Culture Fit
- You enjoy moving fast with good judgment
- You value clarity, consistency, and ownership
- You like small teams where every line of code matters
- You’re driven by outcomes, not ego
- You care about building real value, not fancy fluff
Why Join Us
- You’ll build a platform used by thousands across ASEAN
- You get to shape the engineering culture and architecture from the ground up
- You’ll work on a product with meaningful impact: helping people change their lives through coding
- Small, sharp, high‑ownership team
- Clear progression to Senior Engineer / Lead Engineer