Lead Full-Stack Engineer for AI‑Driven Platforms (Contract→Hire)

Focused; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 117,000 - 138,000; Full time

Job summary

Focused is seeking a hands-on, full stack engineer in Denver for a contract-to-hire role. You will lead end-to-end delivery across the stack, set technical direction, and pair program daily with teammates and clients to improve code quality. The position emphasizes TDD, scalable architecture, and collaboration with design and product.

In-office three days/week with an hourly rate of $85–$100. Ideal candidates are proficient in Python or JS/TS, have experience mentoring teams, and can navigate

Responsibilities

• Write lots of code
• Lead teams through end-to-end delivery across the stack, from backend services to modern web UIs
• Set the technical direction for client engagements and be the go-to escalation point when things get tricky
• Pair program daily with teammates and clients to share knowledge, improve code quality, and grow together
• Practice TDD and continuous refactoring, and own the testing strategy for the codebase, including deciding what not to test
• Guide architecture decisions to support scalability, observability, and performance, including deployment, IAM, and observability design for containerized systems
• Collaborate closely with designers, product managers, and stakeholders to continuously deliver valuable software
• Map business value to engineering effort so clients can make good tradeoffs
• Coach developers on the team through pairing, mentoring, and modeling healthy engineering culture
• Drive incremental process improvement through retros and day to day feedback
• Influence technical direction beyond the team, working across client orgs and Focused's internal practices to share lessons, shape approaches, and raise the collective bar
• Stay curious through experimenting with new patterns in the GenAI space, share what works (and what doesn't), and help evolve how we build AI-powered software
• You’re proactive. You see problems coming and raise them before they turn into fires

Skills

Full stack development

Python

JS/TS

Mentoring

Team leadership

Code reviews

Testing strategy

Deployment design

Observability

AI/GenAI familiarity

Tools

LangChain

LangGraph

LangSmith

Docker

Kubernetes

Git

Job description

Focused is seeking a hands-on, full stack engineer in Denver for a contract-to-hire role. You will lead end-to-end delivery across the stack, set technical direction, and pair program daily with teammates and clients to improve code quality. The position emphasizes TDD, scalable architecture, and collaboration with design and product.

In-office three days/week with an hourly rate of $85–$100. Ideal candidates are proficient in Python or JS/TS, have experience mentoring teams, and can navigate