Full-Stack Engineer (Strong Front End or Backend) – w/ Equity
Bounty Amount: $18,000-20000
Company Name: Known
Role Type: Full-Time
Location: San Francisco, CA (onsite 5 days a week)
Salary / Hourly Rate: $180,000 - $200,000 per year
Benefits: US Citizens Only
Role Information
Role Overview: N/A
Responsibilities: Build end-to-end product features across mobile and web, from React Native onboarding and messaging to React web surfaces for discovery and account flows., Design and maintain Node.js and TypeScript backends, including REST APIs, background jobs, and data pipelines that support both real-time and batch workloads., Implement reliable real-time communication using WebSockets and WebRTC for chat, voice, or video., Integrate third-party services such as OpenAI or Anthropic, payment rails, reservation providers, and messaging channels, with strong monitoring and error handling., Surface AI outputs in product, from compatibility scores to personalized introductions, through clean APIs and thoughtful UI., Own deployment and observability. Set up CI/CD, logging, metrics, alerts, and cost-aware scaling., Add product analytics and instrumentation to track funnels, engagement, and system health in real time.
Qualifications: 4 to 10 years of professional experience building production consumer software in a startup or high-growth environment, Expert level TypeScript and React for web. Comfortable or willing to work in React Native for mobile, Strong backend skills in Node.js with experience designing and owning REST or GraphQL APIs, data models, and services that scale, Solid database experience with Postgres and query performance. Comfort with Redis for caching and background jobs, Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure on AWS. Able to own CI/CD, observability, and basic production operations for your services, Proven product ownership. You have led projects from discovery to launch, instrumented metrics, and iterated quickly based on user data, Experience integrating third-party services and building reliable integrations for messaging, identity, payments, or scheduling, Strong fundamentals in system design, testing, and reliability. You write clear code, meaningful tests, and ship safely, Excellent collaboration and communication with product, design, and leadership. You can explain tradeoffs and drive alignment, Startup readiness. You are happy in a high-context, hands-on environment, move quickly, and take full ownership of outcomes, Work authorization in the United States and ability to work onsite in San Francisco five days a week, Experience with recommendation systems, ranking, or feed algorithms. Comfort working with embeddings or LLM-powered features with clear evaluation loops, Experience building native-feeling mobile experiences in React Native, including offline, push notifications, and app store release flow, Familiarity with Remix or Next.js, server-side rendering, and performance tuning for interactive web apps, Prior work with analytics and experimentation frameworks to measure impact and guide iteration, Founding or early engineer at a seed to Series B consumer startup that grew to meaningful scale, where you owned a core surface or service end to end, Senior full-stack or backend engineer at a product-led company that shipped quickly and handled real user load, such as social, marketplace, or dating products with messaging, profiles, and matching, Lead engineer for a cross-functional project that launched on both web and mobile and required building APIs, data models, and client features under tight timelines
Minimum Requirements: Must be authorized to work in the U.S. without future visa sponsorship.,Able to work onsite in San Francisco, CA five days per week.,4+ years building production software with TypeScript and React, plus hands-on backend experience in Node.js.,Proven experience owning a service end to end: designing REST or GraphQL APIs, modeling data in Postgres, and deploying to AWS with basic CI/CD and observability.,Experience shipping both web and mobile apps: modern React for web and React Native or native iOS/Android for mobile, including release workflows (TestFlight or Play Store) and analytics/monitoring.
Screening Questions: (Optional Video). This step is completely optional. If you’d like, record a short 2–3 minute video introducing yourself and your experience — or share a recording of your interview with the recruiter if that’s easier. You can upload the link via Loom or Google Drive. This just helps us get to know you better, but there’s no pressure if you’d prefer to skip it.,(Optional Portfolio / GitHub) If available, please share a link to your GitHub, portfolio, or any recent projects you’ve worked on. This is entirely optional but helps provide more context about your work.,What excites you most about Known and why are you leaving your current opportunity for this one?,Which are you strongest in: Backend-leaning or Frontend-leaning? Give 2–3 sentences on recent work that shows this.,Have you shipped production features on both web and mobile? Please share details.
Company Information
About Company: N/A
Culture: N/A
Additional Information
Interview Process: Make sure the candidate has read the relevant one-pager (choose the best fit):
Full-Stack one-pager: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gaTHPWVS7ZRoom9ZvtaBuxI3BgYeFO8q-mrhLKXlRVE/edit
Backend one-pager: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aQDC8L737d5dTBRbK64gRiivh6uSTW8r9eWbwhTu6vs/edit?tab=t.0, Full-Stack one-pager: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gaTHPWVS7ZRoom9ZvtaBuxI3BgYeFO8q-mrhLKXlRVE/edit, Backend one-pager: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aQDC8L737d5dTBRbK64gRiivh6uSTW8r9eWbwhTu6vs/edit?tab=t.0, Walk them through the product tech overview deck: https://www.figma.com/design/fMbQlGiJ0vPHoELqW1MzJA/Known-VC-Decks?node-id=292-5671, Confirm full working rights in the U.S., Confirm willingness to work 5 days per week onsite in the Marina office., Stage 1: Intro call - 30 minutes, Stage 2: Technical Screen I - 60 minutes
(CoderPad coding exercise focused on problem solving and clarity in TypeScript.), (CoderPad coding exercise focused on problem solving and clarity in TypeScript.), Stage 3: Onsite Technical II - about 3.5 hours total
~15 min briefing on a longer prompt.
~2.5 hours independent work on the prompt.
~45 min presentation and discussion of the solution.
Policy: Candidate may use editor conveniences and AI tools like ChatGPT or Cursor. Raw correctness can be judged from output. Frontend details are reviewed in the wrap-up., ~15 min briefing on a longer prompt., ~2.5 hours independent work on the prompt., ~45 min presentation and discussion of the solution.
Policy: Candidate may use editor conveniences and AI tools like ChatGPT or Cursor. Raw correctness can be judged from output. Frontend details are reviewed in the wrap-up., Policy: Candidate may use editor conveniences and AI tools like ChatGPT or Cursor. Raw correctness can be judged from output. Frontend details are reviewed in the wrap-up., Final stage: Company fit - 30 to 45 minutes
Values alignment, team collaboration style, and onsite expectations. In person., Values alignment, team collaboration style, and onsite expectations. In person.
Day to day: You will build and ship features across web and mobile that power Known’s voice-driven dating experience. Most days you will move between coding in TypeScript and React, reviewing PRs, pairing with another engineer, and running quick experiments against real user data. You will integrate with services like reservations, rides, and calendars, work with STT and sentiment outputs, and wire product events into data pipelines that inform matching and introductions. You will sit in the Marina office in San Francisco five days a week with the team, join a short stand-up, collaborate with design and product on specs, and end the day by merging and monitoring what you shipped.
Team: You will join a small founding engineering group and report to a founding engineering lead. You will partner closely with the CEO and product to shape priorities, and with peers across backend, infra, and AI/ML. The team includes early builders from companies like Uber, Faire, and Phia. Everyone ships, reviews code, writes lightweight docs, and owns measurable outcomes. Decision loops are fast and you will have direct access to stakeholders and real users.
Growth: This role has high scope and clear paths for advancement. You can take ownership of a surface area such as matching, voice orchestration, web app, mobile app, or integrations, and grow it from first version to city-scale launch. Strong performance can lead to Staff or Lead ownership, greenfield product work, and hiring and mentoring responsibilities as the team scales across new markets. You will build a public track record of shipping user-visible features that drive real-world outcomes.
Ideal Candidate Profile: 4 to 8+ years building production consumer apps in high-growth startups, ideally having shipped a V1 and scaled it meaningfully., Strength in TypeScript and React, plus either React Native for mobile or Node.js for backend. Comfortable designing and maintaining REST APIs, real-time features with WebSockets and WebRTC, and data models in Postgres. Hands-on with modern cloud infra and CI/CD., Experience integrating third-party platforms and AI services: LLM APIs, payments, reservations, messaging, push, and analytics., Product judgment and craft: you instrument what you ship, watch funnels and performance, and raise the bar on UX quality., High ownership and collaboration with AI/ML to surface model outputs in product, and to enable clean data flows for training and evaluation., Bonus signals: prior work on voice, matching or recommendations, real-time comms, or safety/privacy in consumer products., Early engineer or senior IC at a breakout consumer startup that reached product-market fit and scaled usage, owning a mobile or full-stack area end to end., Staff-level full-stack or mobile engineer in a team that shipped real-time features, strong data models, and measurable UX improvements., https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-hsu-47902256/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/brkap/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/xuefeng-yao-5851a41/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan-vekaria/
