Senior Software Engineer, Full-Stack, Platform

Popfly; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Adventure Cash

Annual Retreat

Unlimited PTO

Flexible health benefits

Job summary

Popfly is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to drive from 0→100 in a hyper-growth startup. You will own domain areas, architect scalable solutions, and elevate the team through strong technical leadership.

Your work spans building complex systems (matching, recommendations, analytics), platform evolution, and serving as a technical co-lead. Expect hands-on coding, architectural decisions, and mentoring.

Qualifications

• 4–5+ years of software engineering experience.
• Strong fluency in algorithms, data structures, and design patterns.
• Data-driven mindset: define metrics, run experiments, iterate on performance.
• Cloud infrastructure knowledge.
• Technical leadership with architecture decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own the lifecycle of sophisticated features from framing to post-launch iteration.
• Partner with product to set success metrics for matching, recommendations, and search quality.
• Design horizontal scaling strategies and optimize infrastructure performance.
• Containerize applications for faster deployment and resource management.
• Provide technical leadership through code reviews and architectural decisions.

Skills

Software engineering

Algorithms & data structures

Cloud infrastructure

Product, UX, and specs

Startup mindset

AI tooling usage

Tools

Next.js

TypeScript

MUI

TanStack Query

Shopify

Stripe

OpenAI API

Job description

Popfly is building the infrastructure for the creator economy. Already the leading platform of adventure creators and brands, Popfly is a place where collaboration replaces chaos, and authentic partnerships replace transactional campaigns. Brands like GoPro, Smith Optics, and Backcountry use Popfly to discover vetted creators, collaborate through the entire creative process, and track performance that actually drives revenue. Creators use us to connect with brands they actually care about, manage their workflow, and get paid.

We’re a fast-scaling startup that’s proven product-market fit and is now racing from thousands to millions of users. Our small and nimble engineering team has built a sophisticated platform that handles everything from creator-brand matching to real-time collaboration tools, payment processing, affiliate tracking, and analytics - all purpose-built for the adventure space. We believe perfect is the enemy of shipped, and pragmatic excellence beats over-engineered solutions every time. We’re not building one-off campaigns; we’re building the connected creator ecosystem that defines the future of authentic brand storytelling.

The Role

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer who thrives in the 0→100 phase of a hyper-growth startup. You’ll grow into a technical co-leader who doesn’t just execute tasks but owns entire domains, architects scalable solutions, and elevates the team through strong technical leadership.

This is not a typical engineering role. Your work could look something like:

• 50% – Building sophisticated systems, features, and algorithms (creator-brand matching, recommendation engines, analytics pipelines, real-time collaboration), improving and extending existing features
• 25% – Platform evolution (scaling architecture, monitoring, potential containerization and platform migrations)
• 25% – Technical co-leadership (architectural decisions, guiding engineers when needed)
• …and then an extra 50% spent dreaming up the future, inventing, prototyping, spotting the fires no one sees yet, and quietly solving them before anyone panics

What You’ll Own

• Own the lifecycle of sophisticated features: problem framing, prototype, launch, and post-launch iteration.
• Partner with product to set success metrics for matching, recommendations, and creator-brand search quality.

Platform & Infrastructure

• Design and implement horizontal scaling strategies for services as we grow from thousands to millions of requests
• Optimize infrastructure performance and evaluate data architecture decisions
• Own monitoring, observability, and incident response infrastructure
• Containerize our applications for better resource management and deployment velocity

Technical Leadership

• Collaborate with product and engineering leaders to guide the team through code reviews, architectural decisions, and quality control
• Make high-leverage decisions: when to extract microservices, when to refactor vs. rebuild, and when “good enough” is actually right
• Champion engineering best practices while understanding startup trade-offs - we ship fast, but we ship with quality
• Bridge between product/design vision and technical execution - take a rough direction or half-formed idea from product/eng leadership and turn it into a sharp, well-scoped spec the team can build against
• Translate the “why” into the “what” and “how”: pressure-test the vision, surface the edge cases and trade-offs early, and write specs that are clear enough that the right solution becomes obvious

Our Stack

• Frontend: Next.js, TypeScript, MUI, TanStack Query
• Key integrations: Shopify, Stripe, Autumn, Algolia, Phyllo, Cloudinary, TalkJS, Liveblocks, Knock, SendGrid, Datadog
• AI: OpenAI/Anthropic APIs

Must-Haves

• 4-5+ years of software engineering experience
• Strong algorithm, data structures, and design patterns fluency
• Data and experimentation mindset: define metrics, run A/B tests, and iterate on performance.
• Cloud infrastructure knowledge
• Technical leadership - you’ve influenced architecture and made strategic engineering decisions
• Product, UX, and spec-writing - you can absorb product/leadership vision, ask the questions that expose what’s really being asked for, and translate it into excellent, buildable specs and features (not just implement tickets handed to you)
• Startup mentality - you understand that “perfect is the enemy of good” and can make pragmatic trade-offs
• You’re obsessed with using AI tools like Cursor/Claude Code and beyond, to enhance your effectiveness and productivity, while not sacrificing any quality and maintainability

Nice-to-Haves

• Expertise in .NET, C#, MSSQL, React/Next.js
• Experience building product features on top of LLM APIs (OpenAI/Anthropic)
• Experience with context-engineering / MCP
• Recsys or marketplace matching experience
• Strong design taste and a track record of great product/UX

You’ll Fail If

• You need everything to be “perfect” before shipping
• You prefer to work in isolation vs. collaborating closely with product/design/operations/other engineers
• You’re more interested in completing tickets than owning business outcomes
• You need a fully-specced ticket to start - you can’t take a vision or rough direction and then iterate and shape it into the right spec and implementation
• You believe in gold-plating solutions or chasing every new tech trend
• You think responsibility ends at your job title instead of stepping in when something needs to get done

What We Offer

• Competitive salary range: $140k – $180k, which may vary based on relevant experience, skill level, and geographic location
• Autonomy & ownership: You’ll influence technical direction and the future of our company
• Modern stack with well-supported technologies
• Impact: your work directly influences thousands of creators and brands
• Flexible health benefits: a customizable healthcare reimbursement plan to fit your needs.
• Adventure Cash: We’ll cover some of your next adventure—go explore!
• Annual Retreat: A fun, team-building getaway to recharge and connect with the team.
• Unlimited PTO: Take the time you need to get outside, travel, recharge and perform at your best.
• Ship with quality, but ship fast - we iterate based on real user feedback
• Consistency compounds - we favor uniform “good enough” patterns
• Fail fast - clear error handling, early returns, structured logging
• Readable over clever - clarity beats complexity
• Test what matters - unit tests for business logic, integration/E2E for critical flows
• See a problem, own the problem - ownership extends beyond titles

Ready to Build Something Extraordinary?

If this sounds like you and you’re excited about joining our fast-growing startup, then we want to hear from you!

Popfly is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.