Senior Software Engineer: Node.js/TypeScript, Kafka & AI Coding Agents | Seattle (Remote USA) | Up t
Job Description
"Houston, we have a product problem."
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In 1970, a room full of NASA engineers got a box of spare parts, a hard deadline and one brief: make a square filter fit a round hole, or the crew doesn't come home. Nobody gave them a spec or a ticket. They defined the problem, designed the fix from a blank page and owned the outcome.
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That's the engineer this search is for.
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THE COMMAND MODULE (TECH DETAILS)
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- Core stack: Node.js and TypeScript across the backend services you'll own and design
- Messaging: Kafka, RabbitMQ and event-driven architecture, carrying high-volume business transactions between companies, where ordering, idempotency, retries and replay can't go wrong
- Scale: hundreds of millions of transactions processed for hundreds of customers across thousands of live trading connections, so throughput and reliability are designed in from day one
- AI in the product: AI built into customer workflows, writing and maintaining the data rules that used to take people weeks of manual setup, and catching errors before they hit a customer's operations
- AI in the workflow: coding agents are standard on every engineer's desk. You direct them, review their output line by line and own what ships
- Architecture ownership: you'll write the technical designs for large initiatives and plan for performance, scale and reliability up front
- Product surface: a self-service platform and API, so customers integrate and go live themselves
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MISSION BRIEF
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Our client is a venture-backed, AI-first B2B software company modernizing the plumbing of the supply chain. Hundreds of brands, from Fortune 500 manufacturers to fast-growing consumer names, run hundreds of millions of transactions through its platform. It's growth-stage, around 100 people and remote-first.
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THE FLIGHT PLAN
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You'll take major product initiatives from problem statement to production architecture. You'll decide how the system should work, direct AI agents to help build it, and review what they produce as hard as you'd review a senior colleague's pull request. Fundamentals matter more here, not less. You'll also mentor other engineers and work closely with product to make sure what ships moves the business.
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MISSION REQUIREMENTS
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The hiring manager scores every applicant against these.
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- You've owned the technical design of a major system end to end. The number one filter. You took a blank page and turned it into an architecture, rather than working inside one somebody else drew.
- Real product ownership. You defined the problem, made product decisions and shipped something that changed outcomes. Your resume should say what you designed and shipped and what changed because of it.
- Expert Node.js and TypeScript, backend first. You need to be a backend product engineer.
- Distributed systems and messaging in production. Kafka, RabbitMQ or similar in high-volume, transactional settings.
- You ship production work with AI coding agents. Agent-first day to day, better still if you've built agent features or your own agent tooling. A strong bonus, but never a stand-in for design depth.
- Growth-stage background. Ideally Series C and beyond, or Series A/B with genuine enterprise traction. Large-company-only careers won't clear the bar.
- 5 to 15 years in product engineering.
- Product-minded and a strong communicator. You hold opinions, defend them, and are comfortable having them challenged.
- SaaS background is a plus. Supply chain, logistics or B2B data exchange experience is a bigger one.
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Location: Seattle, remote USA, with Pacific or Mountain time strongly preferred. US citizens or Green Card holders only, as no visa sponsorship is available.
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"Failure is not an option. Neither is a resume that only lists tools."
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ABORT CRITERIA
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- Your experience is mostly platform, devex, infrastructure or frontend rather than product engineering
- Your career is mostly contract, consulting or agency work, or a run of one to two year stints
- You're actively running a startup or side venture you plan to keep going
- Your resume lists tools and responsibilities without showing what you personally owned and its impact
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THE PAYLOAD
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- Base up to $230K plus competitive equity
- Remote-first, with unlimited PTO and a work-from-home lifestyle benefit
- Reporting into a deeply technical engineering leader
- Multiple hires across the team
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REQUESTING LAUNCH CLEARANCE
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Apply with your resume and answer the screening questions. Big Wave Digital is recruiting this role on behalf of our client, and every application is read by a real person. A resume that shows what you owned will beat a long one every time.