Senior Full-Stack Engineer (AI-First) in Austin

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Job Description

Type: Contract to Full-Time — 90 day window, then we make it official if it’s the right fit for both of us

Location: Dallas, Houston, or Austin — remote considered

Experience: 10+ years hands-on engineering — individual contributor, not people manager

Equity: Included after 90 days

Stage: Live product, active clients, two new launches in 60 days

A BIT OF CONTEXT

A lot of good engineers are out of work right now. Layoffs at big tech, hiring freezes, teams cut overnight — if that’s where you are, you don’t need us to explain it. We believe in honesty and transparency with all our team, so we’ll just put it out there. We’re a small startup and we can’t match what Microsoft or Amazon was paying for engineering talent. If you need that number to make rent or a mortgage, this probably isn’t the right fit right now and that’s completely fair. But if you’re in a place where you’d trade some salary short term for real ownership, interesting AI-driven hands on work, a chance to grow your base in line with our revenue, and a team that will support you - read on. 

WHAT WE’RE BUILDING

We build human risk and AI workforce resilience intelligence software — workforce vulnerability assessment, cyber safety, and organizational resilience tooling for enterprises. The next layer: human-to-agent workforce risk modeling.

We launched a v1, learned a lot from it, and made a deliberate call to rebuild on a modern event-driven microservices architecture. That work is done. We have existing clients, two new ones onboarding in the next 60 days, and a roadmap that finally has the foundation it deserves.

We’ve built a set of AI-assisted workflows across our full PDLC and SDLC — requirements scoping, ticket , code review, and release pipelines. We’re not using AI as a coding shortcut; we’ve engineered it into the process itself. You’d be expected to maintain, improve, and evolve that system as the tooling landscape moves.

THE ROLE

This is a hands-on individual contributor role. We’re not looking for someone to manage a team or sit in architecture reviews — we need someone who writes code every day, takes pride in what they ship, and holds the bar on reliability and testing across everything they touch, including code generated by AI tools.

The core platform is built, stable, and live. The focus now is deep back end work — services architecture, knowledge graph development, agent infrastructure, and the intelligent layer we’re building on top of a solid foundation. Our AI tooling handles a significant portion of front end prototyping, and we have a big stack of specs ready to go. 

You’d work directly with the founding team and a growing base of clients who are actively invested in where the product goes. These aren’t passive accounts — they want to help shape it. You’d have real influence, a short feedback loop, and a tight team that genuinely cares about the problem we’re solving.

We’re starting this as a contract engagement, as we've found that works best over time. After 90 days, if we’re both confident it’s the right fit, it becomes full-time — with equity, revenue incentives post-MVP, and a clear compensation path that will grow directly in line with the whole company.

THE STACK

• Backend: Node.js microservices (13 services), CQRS + Event Sourcing
• Message Bus: RabbitMQ (commands, queries, domain events)
• Databases: PostgreSQL (event store + projections), Redis (cache + sessions)
• Knowledge Graph: Neo4j — a primary focus of new build
• Auth: Auth0, OAuth2/JWKS, SCIM 2.0, SAML/External IdP sync
• Infra: GCP (Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, CDN), Jaeger, Elasticsearch + Grafana
• Frontend: React + TypeScript, TanStack Query, Shadcn UI (largely AI-assisted)
• CMS: Payload CMS v3 (headless)
• Comms: SendGrid, Twilio
• AI Layer: agent infrastructure and human-to-agent risk modeling — where the majority of new build is happening

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

• 10+ years of hands-on full-stack engineering — you still write the code, every day
• Deep back end expertise: distributed systems, event-driven architecture, microservices, async patterns
• A proven track record of delivery — you ship things that work, on time, in production
• Serious about testing and reliability — unit, integration, end-to-end, and the discipline to apply this to AI-generated code too
• Genuine AI-first engineering mindset — you’ve integrated LLMs and agents into real products, not just prototypes
• Interest in graph data modeling and knowledge architecture
• Comfortable being the most experienced person in the room without needing to manage the room
• Self-directed, low ego, high output, good sense of humor. 

NEED TO HAVE

• Neo4j or other knowledge graph experience
• GCP experience (Cloud Functions, Storage, CDN)
• Auth0 / SCIM / SAML enterprise auth patterns
• Reliability engineering or platform engineering background

NICE TO HAVE

• Early-stage startup or founding engineer experience

WHAT’S ON THE TABLE

• Contract to full-time — 90 days to make sure it works for both of us
• Base compensation that is honest about where we are, with a clear path to grow substantially
• Equity included after the 90 day window
• Revenue incentives that kick in post-MVP
• Direct access to the founding team and clients who want to help shape the product
• Work that is technically deep and genuinely useful in the world

TO APPLY

A short note about yourself and links to anything you’ve built.

Please include the following with your application:

• In two to three sentences: what does human-to-agent workforce risk modeling mean to you? There’s no right answer — we want to see how you think.
• We describe how we use AI in our development process. In your own words, what did we say — and where do you agree or disagree?

Applications that don’t include responses to both questions above will not be reviewed.

We’re a small startup and aren’t able to offer visa sponsorship or work authorization support. Please only apply if you’re currently authorized to work in the US without sponsorship.

If you are interested in applying for this job please press the Apply Button and follow the application process. Energy Jobline wishes you the very best of luck in your next career move.