Staff Product Engineer, Americas

Ashby; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 190,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and equity

Unlimited PTO

Generous equipment budget

$100/month education budget

Top-tier health insurance for US employees

Job summary

Ashby is seeking a versatile Product Engineer to develop and implement features across the stack in Chicago, IL. The role emphasizes ownership and agency in a minimal process environment. You will research competitors, deliver features, and collaborate closely with team members. Ideal candidates have a strong background in various technologies and a proactive approach to problem-solving. Benefits include competitive salary and equity, unlimited PTO, health insurance, and educational budgets.

Qualifications

• Comfortable tackling any part of a technology stack.
• Experience delivering projects with significant ambiguity.
• Excellent collaborator and communicator.

Responsibilities

• Research competitors, write product specs, and own feature delivery.
• Design and build automated interview scheduling.
• Implement features for user experience improvements.

Skills

Technology stack (frontend, backend, infrastructure)

Collaboration and communication

Speed and quality balance

Automation and tool building

Tools

TypeScript

React

GraphQL API

Node.js

Postgres

Redis

Job description

About The Role And How We Work

We’re looking for a versatile and persistent product engineer who builds reusable building blocks across the stack and advocates for the time and space to do so. Our engineers ship features end‑to‑end at a high pace, working in a culture of ownership, agency, and minimal process.

Responsibilities

• Research competitors, write product specifications, create wireframes, and own end‑to‑end feature delivery across product and design boundaries.
• Designed and built automated interview scheduling, a feature that calculates possible interview times, presents them to candidates, and handles conflict resolution.
• Built a generalized declarative filter architecture that allows users to create complex filters for any record, with a consistent UI and SQL compilation in the backend.
• Specced, designed, and implemented a feature that lets users sign offers entirely within the platform, involving customer discovery, prototyping, and integration.

Qualifications

• Comfortable tackling any part of a technology stack, including frontend, backend, and infrastructure.
• Experience delivering projects with significant product and technical ambiguity, with a focus on powerful abstractions and system flexibility.
• Ability to balance speed and quality in a startup environment that values high‑quality delivery but moves with urgency.
• Aspirational mindset and openness to feedback, with a desire to improve skills and lead by example.
• Excellent collaborator and communicator; able to vet decisions with stakeholders, provide updates, and coordinate with peers.
• Proactive in creating leverage—automating tedious work, building tools, or establishing best‑practice rules.

What We Don’t Look For

• Expecting heavy project management or process‑driven work; we trust engineers to manage their own deliverables.
• Reliance on strict sprint planning or predefined processes to get work done.
• Desire for only high‑level assignments with little implementation detail.
• Overreliance on detailed upfront planning and a lack of initiative to drive overall project scope.
• No prior independent ownership of projects; we prefer seasoned senior or lead engineers.
• Interest in mentoring earlier‑career engineers; the team is predominantly senior or above.

Engineering Culture

Minimal process with ownership over decisions typically reserved for product and design. Natural collaboration and deliberate communication. Tools and abstractions that provide leverage. Commitment to building a diverse team.

Interview Process

• Introduction call with Hiring Manager (15–30 min, live).
• Technical screen with pair programming in our codebase (1 h, live).
• Three non‑coding interviews focusing on product thinking, technical design, and infrastructure (total 3 h 15 min, live, can be split across days).

Additional recruiter screen is optional. Feedback is provided when an offer is not made.

Onboarding & First Three Months

• Setup of development environment via a single script.
• First day push of a product change.
• Progressive onboarding of project scope from simple copy to impactful features.
• Manager conducts 30‑, 60‑, 90‑day reviews for feedback and calibration.
• Peer pairing, regular check‑ins, and access to training sessions on culture, product, engineering process, and architecture.

Technology Stack

• TypeScript (frontend & backend)
• React
• GraphQL API
• Node.js
• Postgres
• Redis

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity.
• 10‑year exercise window for stock options.
• Unlimited PTO.
• Minimum 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave.
• Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget.
• $100/month education budget.
• Top‑tier health insurance for US employees and supplemental health insurance for other countries.

Compensation Range

$190 K – $275 K

Equal Employment Opportunity

Ashby provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.