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Founding Full-Stack Engineer
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Founding Frontend Engineer
An early-stage, pre-launch startup, built by experienced venture builders, needs a Founding Frontend Engineer before launch. Pre-launch timelines are tight. This is an urgent hire.
The Role
Radical ownership of the product's UI/UX, working directly with the founder. High autonomy on approach and speed, paired with hands-on execution: shipping frontend features personally and building backend endpoints when the product needs it. No rigid process, no mandatory code review, blunt feedback culture.
Responsibilities
- Build and ship SvelteKit applications end to end: routing, load functions, server-side rendering, form actions, and client-side state management.
- Write component-level TypeScript with strict typing; no
anyas a default, and no unchecked casts to bypass the compiler. - Implement responsive, accessible UI with Tailwind CSS, including custom design systems and component variants, not utility classes copied from templates.
- Build and expose REST or RPC endpoints in Fastify, including request validation (schema-based), error handling, and auth middleware.
- Write and modify Postgres schemas: design tables, write and roll back migrations, and write raw SQL or use a query builder (Drizzle, Kysely, or Prisma) for non-trivial queries.
- Own performance on the frontend: bundle size, hydration cost, load waterfall, and Core Web Vitals.
- Set up or maintain CI/CD for a Node.js/SvelteKit app: build, lint, type-check, deploy.
- Debug production issues across the full stack without handing off to a backend specialist.
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Requirements
- 4+ years of professional frontend engineering, with at least 1-2 years using SvelteKit specifically. Deep, verifiable experience in another modern reactive framework (React, Vue) is acceptable only if paired with proof of fast ramp-up on Svelte.
- Strict TypeScript: comfortable with generics, discriminated unions, and typing complex API responses. Can explain, without hesitation, why
anyis a problem and how to avoid it. - Working knowledge of Fastify specifically, or deep equivalent experience in another Node.js framework (Express, Hono, NestJS) with fast ramp-up expected on Fastify's plugin and hook system.
- Hands-on Postgres skills: schema design, indexing basics, writing and reverting migrations, and diagnosing slow queries with EXPLAIN. Comfortable in the psql CLI, not only through an ORM GUI.
- Tailwind CSS in production: custom theme configuration, component abstraction, and responsive design without excessive utility duplication.
- Public GitHub profile with commit history that verifiably backs the stack above, or a live, functioning product built end to end that can be tested directly.
- Able to walk through a real production incident or bug you fixed across both frontend and backend in the same session.
- Based in Europe, working remotely, with significant working-hours overlap with a founder-led team.
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Not a Fit If
- No public GitHub profile or live shipped product demonstrating this exact stack.
- Frontend-only background with no working knowledge of backend CRUD, API design, or SQL.
- Has only used an ORM and never written raw SQL, or cannot explain what a migration does.
- Loose TypeScript usage:
anyeverywhere, no shared types between frontend and backend, no type safety across the API boundary. - No experience with schema validation, error handling, or auth middleware on a real backend service.
- Exclusively enterprise background with narrow, siloed scope and no end-to-end product ownership.
Good to Have
- Ex-founder or entrepreneurial background.
- Side projects shipped for paying clients, with real users and real uptime requirements.
- Direct production experience with SvelteKit, Tailwind, and Fastify together, not just individually.
- Experience setting up a project from zero: repo, CI, hosting, database, auth.
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