Staff Software Engineer

Tactiq; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Impactful contributions

Remote-friendly culture

Ownership of product domains

Learning opportunities with founders

Job summary

A leading AI software company is seeking a Staff Engineer to join their product engineering team in Palo Alto, California. In this role, you'll be responsible for creating user-focused features and enhancing existing functionalities. The ideal candidate will have strong debugging skills, a commitment to high-quality code, and the ability to operate under ambiguity. You'll work in a flexible and remote-friendly culture that values autonomy and impact. Join us to make a difference for over a million users.

Qualifications

• Track record operating at staff-level scope in high-growth product companies.
• Deep systems thinking: performance and reliability.
• Ability to ship material value under uncertainty.

Responsibilities

• Own company-level outcomes across a complex product.
• Turn ambiguous problems into executable plans.
• Lead incident response for production issues.

Skills

Strong debugging skills

Excellent communication skills

Data modeling

Resourcefulness

Curiosity in new technologies

Job description

About Tactiq

Tactiq transforms meetings from places where work gets discussed to places where work gets delivered. Over 1 million users across tens of thousands of teams rely on Tactiq to turn meeting conversations into exceptional outcomes. We're a Series A, Sydney-based SaaS company building an AI note taker for Google Meet, Zoom, and MS Teams.

We're product‑led growth in its purest form: individuals adopt → teams form organically → enterprises discover value → they come to us. A great product that users love. At the same time, we're a small, AI‑enabled team. That means high leverage, high autonomy, and every decision matters and compounds.

The Role

Join our product engineering team, where you'll be instrumental in creating new user‑centric features and enhancing existing functionalities. You'll collaborate with product, marketing, and support teams to ensure seamless feature delivery.

We need a Staff‑level builder who pairs entrepreneurial drive with disciplined delivery to own company‑level outcomes across a complex product and data surface. You will own outcomes, not tasks, and will partner as a peer with senior PMs to shape roadmap and scope.

Not for You If

• You need task lists, extensive PM/EM direction, or weekly architecture approval rituals.
• Your impact tops out at a single service/team, or you primarily optimise for individual velocity.
• You prefer clean‑room design over production constraints and fast feedback.

What You’ll Do

• Lead from ambiguity: turn messy, multi‑constraint problems into executable and phased delivery. Clear requirements are a myth, but clear direction is not. It is also your job to make that ambiguity smaller.
• Make quick, high‑leverage, pragmatic decisions. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right – thinking it through but not overengineering and blowing it out of proportion.
• Act as incident commander for hairy production issues; drive post‑incident hardening and fixes.
• Ship hands‑on: design, code, review, and instrument – with AI‑native tooling as the baseline, not the exception.

How We Work

• High autonomy, low hierarchy; tight Product‑Engineering loops. When we disagree, we dig down to the roots and find common ground because we all want the same thing, in the end.
• We collaborate and support each other any time, all the time. There is always someone who can help, even if they will be acting as a rubber duck.
• AI‑accelerated engineering by default – but without blind trust in generated things. No matter the source, reviews and testing are reviews and testing. Using AI is not optional, but it’s not a silver bullet.
• Modern tooling and constant progress. We put focused effort into getting best‑in‑class tools – and we change them if necessary as well, so sunk costs do not keep swimming with us.

Requirements

• Track record operating at staff‑level scope in high‑growth product companies.
• Deep systems thinking: data modelling, performance, reliability, platform boundaries, security by design.
• Elite execution under uncertainty: you ship material value without a "requirements buffet."
• Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills. Some problems are hard to reproduce, but that would never stop you.
• Strong communication skills for effective interaction with technical and non‑technical colleagues.
• Proven capability to own the delivery of complex features from product design through to production support.
• Pragmatism in choosing solutions and flexibility in adjusting along the way.
• Resourcefulness in finding minimal but viable solutions to new requirements.
• A commitment to delivering high‑quality, stable code with frequent releases.
• Curiosity in finding and experimenting with new technologies and tools.
• Hot burning passion to ship software to hundreds of thousands and millions of users to change their lives.

Benefits

• Leverage: Small AI‑enabled team = 10x the impact of a traditional engineering role.
• Ownership: You'll own product domain areas end‑to‑end.
• Scale: 1M+ users, pure PLG, bottom‑up motion. This is PLG at its best.
• Learning: Work directly with founders who obsess over data, experimentation, and exceptional execution.
• Impact: Every experiment you run, every feature you ship, every coloured pixel you build matters immediately.
• Flexibility: Remote‑friendly, autonomy‑first culture. We trust you to do your best work.

Our Values

• Build what is right for the customer: We move from customer feedback to customer outcomes ASAP.
• Ship fast but thoughtfully: We look ahead, but deliver every day. Outcomes over activity.
• Data‑driven decision making: We use rigorous analytical thinking. Data informs, intuition guides.
• Autonomy allows us to do our best work: We work independently, collaborate in small teams, and keep noise minimal.
• Transparency, trust, empathy: We communicate clearly, share openly, and elevate each other.
• Measured growth drives long‑term success: We don't grow for growth's sake. We organise ourselves to bring out the best in our people and focus on what customers need.