Software Engineer

Ploy; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Ploy is seeking a Founding Engineer to own end-to-end product experiences and the systems behind them. You’ll partner with product and design, own projects from idea to shipped to scaled, and help shape engineering culture as we grow.

You will build 0→1 features, ship across the stack, and push AI tools to their limits while delivering high-quality UX and scalable infrastructure.

Qualifications

• Must have a track record of shipping 0→1 products (startup or new product line).
• Comfortable as a true full-stack engineer (front-end + backend).
• Strong product sense: reason about user workflows and trade-offs without perfect specs.
• Design intuition with clean UI and attention to detail.
• Systems mindset: build fast, reliable, maintainable software as usage grows.

Responsibilities

• Build 0→1 product features end-to-end: discovery, design, implementation, launch, iteration.
• Use AI tools daily to push their limits and learn with the team.
• Ship across stack (web app, backend, data, infra) with simple, durable systems.
• Develop product experiences with strong UX quality: interaction, performance, polish.
• Design and operate scalable systems: reliability, observability, capacity planning, cost/performance trade-offs.
• Improve engineering foundations: architecture, tooling, CI, testing, release processes, on-call hygiene.
• Collaborate closely with founders and teammates, turning ambiguity into execution.

Skills

0→1 product

Full-stack engineer

Product sense

UI craftsmanship

Systems mindset

Job description

About Ploy

Ploy is building an AI-native growth engine for modern marketing teams — combining high-leverage product experiences with reliable, scalable systems.

We’re a small, fast-moving team shipping new product surfaces weekly and hardening them for real production traffic. If you enjoy building end-to-end products, sweating details, and scaling what you ship, you’ll fit in well.

The role

As a Founding Engineer, you’ll work across the stack to build core product experiences and the systems behind them. You’ll partner closely with product and design, own projects from idea → shipped → scaled, and help shape the engineering culture and technical direction as we grow.

What you’ll do

• Build 0→1 product features end-to-end: discovery, technical design, implementation, launch, and iteration.

• Use the latest AI tools every day — build with them, push their limits, and learn alongside teammates doing the same.

• Ship across the stack (web app, backend services, data, infrastructure) with a bias toward simple, durable systems.

• Build product experiences with strong UX quality: interaction design, performance, and polish.

• Design and operate systems that scale: reliability, observability, capacity planning, cost/performance trade-offs.

• Improve our engineering foundations: architecture, tooling, CI, testing, release processes, and on-call hygiene.

• Collaborate tightly with founders and teammates, turning ambiguous problems into crisp execution.

What we’re looking for

Must-haves

• Strong track record building and shipping 0→1 products (startup, new product line, or major greenfield initiative).

• Comfortable as a true full-stack engineer (front-end + backend), and willing to go wherever the work is.

• Strong product sense: you can reason about user workflows, trade-offs, and “what matters” without needing perfect specs.

• Design intuition: you care about craft, and you can implement clean UI with attention to detail.

• Systems mindset: you enjoy making software fast, reliable, and maintainable as usage grows.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience scaling products and systems through inflection points (10× traffic, new customer segments, new pricing/billing complexity).

• Experience with AI-powered products (LLMs, agentic systems, evaluation/observability, prompt/tooling pipelines).

• Prior experience as an early engineer or founder in a high-ownership environment.

• Experience in the web and marketing space

How we work

• Small teams, high ownership, fast iteration.

• Engineers own product: you’ll partner directly with design and founders, and have real agency over what we build and why.

• Pragmatic engineering: ship quickly, then harden with the right abstractions.

• We value clear thinking, taste, and accountability over ceremony.