Founding Engineer – Full-Stack (Remote, Full-Time) [AS324] (PK)

Smart Working; Karachi Division; On-site; PKR 38,878,000 - 58,317,000; Full time

Job summary

Smart Working is seeking a Founding Engineer to own the platform end‑to‑end across frontend, backend and infra. You will scale an AI‑native Professional Services Automation platform, delivering customer‑facing features with significant autonomy.

This senior/staff‑level IC role offers high ownership, remote‑first collaboration with global teams and a path to shaping the first supporting hire after funding rounds.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, ideally including early‑stage startup or high‑ownership experience.
• 5+ years of senior‑level full‑stack engineering across React/TypeScript or Next.js/Vue/Nuxt with end‑to‑end ownership.
• 4+ years senior ownership of cloud deployment, releases and CI/CD without a dedicated DevOps team.
• 3+ years senior experience with Postgres/Supabase or equivalent (row‑level security, edge functions).
• 1–2+ years using AI‑assisted coding tools in production or heavy use of LLMs in development workflows.
• Clear method for checking AI outputs rather than blind trust.

Responsibilities

• Own the product end‑to‑end as a solo generalist, shipping across frontend, backend and infra.
• Keep the live platform healthy, manage incidents, defects and safe releases/rollback.
• Use AI tools to boost output while verifying correctness, security and robustness.
• Drive ISO 27001 and SOC 2 readiness with concrete engineering controls.
• Make AI assistant and orchestration features reliable, measurable and safe.
• Decide what to preserve, isolate, or replace in the platform based on risk and value.
• Move across frontend and backend as a true full‑stack generalist with no fixed split.
• Harden and evolve the product, including delivery intelligence and SOW invoices, with customer facing improvements.
• Act as hands‑on technical owner; help shape first supporting engineer post funding.
• Collaborate with founders in a high‑ambiguity environment.

Skills

Full-stack engineering

React/TypeScript

Node/Postgres backend

CI/CD

AI-assisted tools

Independent ownership

Senior IC generalist

Tools

Cursor

Claude Code

Copilot

Job description

At Smart Working, we believe your job should not only look right on paper but also feel right every day. This isn’t just another remote opportunity - it’s about finding where you truly belong, no matter where you are. From day one, you’re welcomed into a genuine community that values your growth and well‑being.

Our mission is simple: to break down geographic barriers and connect skilled professionals with outstanding global teams and products for full‑time, long‑term roles. We help you discover meaningful work with teams that invest in your success, where you’re empowered to grow personally and professionally.

Join one of the highest‑rated workplaces on Glassdoor and experience what it means to thrive in a truly remote‑first world.

About the Role

As a Founding Engineer, you’ll be the first in‑house engineering hire, owning the platform across frontend, backend and infrastructure. You’ll scale and evolve the existing AI‑native Professional Services Automation platform while continuing to deliver customer‑facing features.

This is a senior/staff‑level IC role with significant ownership and autonomy, with scope to grow as the company scales.

About Smart Working

At Smart Working, we believe your job should not only look right on paper but also feel right every day. This isn’t just another remote opportunity - it’s about finding where you truly belong, no matter where you are. From day one, you’re welcomed into a genuine community that values your growth and well‑being.

Our mission is simple: to break down geographic barriers and connect skilled professionals with outstanding global teams and products for full‑time, long‑term roles. We help you discover meaningful work with teams that invest in your success, where you’re empowered to grow personally and professionally.

Join one of the highest‑rated workplaces on Glassdoor and experience what it means to thrive in a truly remote‑first world.

About the Role

As a Founding Engineer, you’ll be the first in‑house engineering hire, owning the platform across frontend, backend and infrastructure. You’ll scale and evolve the existing AI‑native Professional Services Automation platform while continuing to deliver customer‑facing features.

This is a senior/staff‑level IC role with significant ownership and autonomy, with scope to grow as the company scales.

Responsibilities

• Own the product end-to-end as a solo generalist, building, shipping and deploying across frontend, backend and infrastructure without a supporting team.
• Keep the live platform healthy, including handling incidents and defects and managing safe releases and rollback.
• Use AI/agentic coding tools to increase personal output while independently verifying correctness, security and robustness rather than trusting AI-generated output blindly.
• Lead the platform towards ISO 27001 and SOC 2 readiness by April 2027, translating external compliance requirements into concrete engineering controls; prior certification experience is not required.
• Make the AI assistant and orchestration features reliable, measurable and safe.
• Decide what to preserve, isolate, improve or replace in the current platform based on customer risk and commercial value, without undertaking an unnecessary rebuild.
• Move fluidly across frontend and backend as a true full‑stack generalist, with no fixed frontend/backend split.
• Harden, scale and evolve the existing product, including delivery intelligence, AI assistant, SOW ingestion, project/resource/commercial management and a beta orchestration layer, while continuing to ship customer‑facing improvements.
• Work solo end‑to‑end as the company's hands‑on technical owner, with the potential to help decide on and shape the first supporting engineering hire once funding closes.
• Work effectively with high ambiguity, evolving scope and close, direct collaboration with both technical and non‑technical founders.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, ideally including early‑stage startup or high‑ownership experience.
• 5+ years of senior‑level full‑stack engineering experience across a React/TypeScript frontend and Node/Postgres‑style backend, or a strong modern JavaScript/TypeScript full‑stack equivalent such as Next.js or Vue/Nuxt, with proven end‑to‑end ownership.
• 4+ years of senior‑level experience with solo ownership of cloud deployment, releases and CI/CD, or a proven record of shipping and operating production infrastructure without a dedicated DevOps/platform team.
• 3+ years of senior‑level experience with Postgres/Supabase or equivalent, including row‑level security and edge functions. Deep relational database experience with another Postgres‑based backend, Firebase or PlanetScale is also acceptable.
• 1–2+ years of senior‑level experience using AI‑assisted/agentic coding tools such as Cursor, Claude Code or Copilot to ship production software, or demonstrable heavy and disciplined use of LLMs within a professional development workflow.
• Have a clear method for checking AI-generated output rather than trusting it blindly.
• Be comfortable operating as a senior/staff‑level individual contributor generalist and owning a product or platform end‑to‑end solo or near‑solo; formal project‑leadership titles are not required.

Nice to Have

• 1–2+ years of LLM application engineering experience covering prompt design, evaluation, grounding and orchestration/agent safety, or evidence of fast, rigorous learning in a new technical domain.
• 2+ years of security fundamentals covering multi‑tenant access control, secrets management and authentication/OAuth, or a security‑conscious engineering track record without a formal security title.
• Experience translating ISO 27001/SOC 2 requirements into engineering practice. No prior certification experience is required, but you must be able to research and implement compliance requirements independently ahead of the April 2027 target.
• 2+ years of startup/founding engineer or small‑team, high‑ownership experience, or a track record of shipping solo or near‑solo end‑to‑end without a supporting team.
• 1+ year of rapid‑prototype/AI‑generated codebase remediation experience, such as with Lovable, v0 or Bolt‑originated codebases, or experience stabilising and hardening fast‑built code of any origin.
• 1+ year of Stripe billing/payments API integration experience, or experience with another payments or metering API integration.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.