Product Engineer, Ludus Labs

Ludus; Michigan; On-site; USD 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance (Medical, Vision, and

Dental) — Provided by Ludus and paid

401(k) matching

Profit Sharing and Stock Options

Personal Wellness

Experience Credit

Flexible PTO

Sick Days

Job summary

Ludus is seeking a Product Engineer to kickstart Ludus Labs, an internal incubator building AI-powered software for current markets and beyond. You’ll join a tiny, highly autonomous team with the CIO, turning ideas into practical, shipped products.

We move fast, embrace experimentation, and value ownership. If you enjoy prototyping, shipping, and shaping a product stack across multiple projects, this role could be for you.

Qualifications

• Self-starter who thrives in controlled chaos.
• Comfortable across the stack and willing to learn new tools as needed.
• Willing to experiment with AI to ship quickly and effectively.

Responsibilities

• Turn ideas into working software: concept to prototype to production.
• Move across several products and codebases at different stages.
• Choose the stack that fits each product and project.
• Build with AI as a core tool to accelerate delivery.
• Ship polished interfaces and useful features with speed.
• Communicate decisions, rationale, and next steps clearly.

Skills

Full-Stack Fundamentals

Product and UX Instincts

Clear Communication

Ownership Driven

Tools

PHP

Laravel

Job description

We are looking for a Product Engineer to help kickstart Ludus Labs, our new innovation program, and build software fast with AI on a small, scrappy team. Ludus is launching Ludus Labs, an internal incubator that builds new software products for our current market and beyond, and we're looking for an engineer to build them with us. Labs works like a small startup with a great parent company. It's two people to start: our Chief Innovation Officer, who leans toward ideas and business (and codes too), and you, who lives in the building. We move fast and lean heavily on AI. If building is what you'd do on a Saturday anyway, keep reading.

Where We Are Today

Ludus is a SaaS company serving thousands of small and mid-sized performing arts organizations. Labs sits alongside that platform with access to our customers, domain knowledge, and engineering team, and the freedom to move at startup speed.

Things you should know before applying

At Ludus, our mission is to bring people together through shared experiences. It’s a big goal that allows for limitless expansion to make a difference in the world.

We move fast and are constantly learning and adapting. We embrace low process and high trust to navigate change and figure out what works.

We believe success is never final and when you think it is, that is when you fail. For us, success is a sum of small efforts, including trial and error, so we move at an unrelenting weekly pace.

In order to grow as a company and individually, discomfort is necessary so we can continue exploring new ideas and push ourselves to build quality tools to offer the best solutions for our customers.

If you prefer a hand-holding environment where everything is black and white, that’s not us. If you’re a self-starter and can thrive in controlled chaos, Ludus is the place for you — it’s time to find your role

What You'll Be Doing

You’ll mostly be building: taking ideas we already know we want to pursue and applying creative, practical solutions to make them real. If you have an entrepreneurial streak, there's room to flex it here too, and your ideas are welcome.

Labs is many products, not one, so you’ll move across several products and codebases at different stages. The stack isn't locked in, and you’ll have room to choose what fits each product.

Important Note

This is a full-time role with the work-life balance Ludus is known for. We don't expect long hours every day, but we do expect real passion for building. If this is a 9-to-5 paycheck for you, it's not the right role. If you can't help but tinker, prototype, and ship, it might be exactly right.

• Turn Ideas into Working Software: Take ideas from rough concept to prototype to production, quickly.
• Make the Everyday Calls: Decide scope, UX, and tooling without needing a sign-off, and tell us what you chose.
• Bring Creative Solutions: Poke at ideas, say what you'd do differently, and share your own.
• Build with AI as a Core Tool: Use AI across design, code, and testing to turn weeks into days.
• Move Across Products: Keep several products and codebases moving, and help pick the stack for each.
• Ship Polished Work: Make clean interfaces on your own, and know when "good enough to learn from" is the right bar.

Traits we're looking for

• A Doer with Practical Urgency: You get things done, keep momentum, and finish what you start.
• Good Judgment on the Small Stuff: You make sound calls without a spec or sign-off, avoid both over-engineering and careless shortcuts, and keep testing and security in mind as you move.
• A Track Record of Shipping Fast with AI: You've built real software quickly with AI tools and have the judgment to review and test what ships. Show us examples.
• Full-Stack Fundamentals: Comfortable across the stack. PHP and Laravel are a plus, but adaptability matters more than loyalty to any one framework.
• Product and UX Instincts: You know good design when you see it and can produce it yourself.
• Easy Context Switching: Jumping between products and codebases energizes you instead of draining you.
• Small Team Experience: You've worked on small or solo teams and you're comfortable with ambiguity.
• Clear Communication: Quick updates on what you decided, why, and what's next.

BONUS Qualifications

• Experience shipping and supporting a product with real users, especially SaaS
• Experience with Stripe or other payment processing APIs
• A portfolio, side projects, or AI-powered products we can look at.

Personal Attributes

• Genuinely Loves Building: The work doesn't feel like a chore, and you probably have a few projects that actually shipped.
• A Finisher: You would rather launch something simple this week than polish something ambitious forever.
• Easy to Build With: You can disagree well, commit fully, and keep things fun.
• Curious and Resourceful: You pick up new tools quickly and find a way when the path isn't obvious.
• Ownership Driven: You treat what you build as yours, from first prototype to the customer's first week.

What Makes This Different

• A tiny team with real influence: No layers, no handoffs, and room to shape the stack and the products.
• A real partner: You'll build side by side with our CIO, who brings ideas, business sense, and a network of customers.
• Real distribution: Ludus already serves thousands of arts organizations, so what you build can reach customers fast.
• Shared success: Bonuses are tied to the success of the products you help build, with a path to keep building a product that takes off (details to be discussed with finalists).

This Might Not Be for You If

• You want a lot of structure up front, like detailed specs or defined tickets
• You prefer deep, long-running work on a single codebase
• You see engineering mainly as a 9-to-5 paycheck

Perks

• Health Insurance (Medical, Vision, Dental) — Provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield and Guardian. Ludus covers 90% of the premium of our employees and 50% of all dependents.
• 401(k) matching — Full match on the first 5% contribution and 50% match on the next 5% of contribution (7.5% contribution match by Ludus if you contribute 10%).
• Profit Sharing and Stock Options — We believe in sharing our success and offer annual profit-sharing bonuses during profitable years, along with stock options that give employees a stake in our long-term growth and success.
• Personal Wellness — $50 monthly reimbursement that can be used on anything personal wellness related.
• Experience Credit — $100 yearly reimbursement toward concert tickets, theatre tickets, etc. to encourage shared experiences.
• Flexible PTO — Take the time you need for vacation or personal days - simply work with your team to ensure everything runs smooth while you are away.
• Sick Days — If you're under the weather, we expect you to take the time needed to recover within reason.

Role Details

• Salary Range: 125k-150k
• Location: /Hybrid – Mon & Weds in our Ada office
• Interviews: You'll meet and interview directly with our Chief Innovation Officer, the person you'll be building with every day.
• Reports To: Chief Innovation Officer