Founding Engineer
About Noto
Noto is building the AI native operating system for after school businesses like tutoring centers, music schools, and sports academies. Our mission is to be the core platform that powers the 150,000 after school businesses in the country.
Despite their size and importance, these businesses are currently underserved by technology, typically relying on a fragmented mix of basic point solutions and outdated legacy software. Noto is building an all-in-one system that uses AI to provide a magical experiences to a large customer base who are used to sticky notes and spreadsheets.
Noto is fresh off a $3.8M seed round, backed by top tier VC’s like Base10 and South Park Commons. Noto is founded by two technical founders AJ Ding and Steve Wang and is based out of NYC.
We’re excited to build our core team. Join Noto to build great software for the small businesses of the world!
(us at karaoke with one of our favorite customers)
Team Background 🤝🏻
AJ Ding is the CEO of Noto. He's a second-time founder and previously built an AI recruiting company. He was a machine learning engineer and data scientist at Quora, Lyft, & Meta. He studied Statistics at Yale and most importantly, he comes from a family of small business owners.
Steve is the CTO of Noto. He was previously the Head of Engineering at Nitra, an a16z backed vertical SaaS startup that built back office automation for doctors. He's worked in data science and engineering at Lyft. He studied math at Harvard, and his family is from Canada.
Location 📍
Noto is based in person in New York, near union square
4 days in office 1 day WFH
1 week per quarter work from anywhere
Occasional travel for team off sites and customer visits
Work Culture 💼
High Camaraderie: We are in the trenches together, so we take care of each other and celebrate our collective success.
Low Ego: We believe in collaboration over hierarchy 🤝. We have a flat decision-making structure—great ideas can come from anywhere.
Work hard. Team members are asked to work 50-60 hour weeks. Some late nights and occasional weekends will be expected. But this isn’t about burnout—it’s about growth and impact. If you want to build something meaningful and grow fast, let’s talk. 🪴
Have fun too! We are not just about grinding. We recently took a work offsite to Mexico City, where we did a hackathon, explored the city, and bonded over tacos. 🌮. In the past, we've hosted a Karaoke Night with one of our first customers, a music school in Manhattan—turns out debugging and belting out pop songs go hand in hand. 🎤
Growth Mindset: We also attend industry conferences to connect with our users, learn, network, and push the boundaries of our craft
Ideal Candidate 🎯
2+ years of experience
Full-Stack
You are a product engineer. You love to build product that users touch.
You love startups. Not just the hype, but the “let’s build something real” kind 🌐
You want autonomy—to make key technical & product decisions, move fast, and help shape Noto’s future. There’s no ceiling to your growth here— take on as much responsibility as you’re ready for🔑
You care about small business owners and want to use software & AI to help them thrive 🤝
Our Tech Stack🏗️
You don’t need to know them all. We trust you'll learn quickly.
Frontend: React, Next.js
Backend: Node.js, PostgreSQL, Drizzle
Infrastructure: tRPC in a Monorepo, deployed on Vercel
AI: LLMs to streamline small business operations, data pipelines for seamless onboarding, and agentic workflows to automate complex tasks (ex., scheduling)—helping businesses run smarter and faster.
Our Engineering Culture 🛠️
We value product-minded engineers with strong sense of ownership. You won’t just be handed specs—you’ll be expected to ask questions, take initiative, and contribute to the roadmap.
We tolerate messiness to ship quickly, but take responsibility for cleaning up our tech debt.
As the founding engineering, you will help shape a strong engineering culture that keeps us efficient and motivated:
Always Be Shipping – Progress over perfection, iterate quickly 🚢
Pride in our Craft – Quality matters - we take pride in our work 🎨
Serve the Customer – Our users run small businesses; we exist to make their lives easier💡
Compensation & Perks 💰
Competitive pay and meaningful equity so you have real skin in the game 📈
Meals & Budget – Office lunch and a stipend for work-related expenses 🍕
Company Retreats – Join us for team retreats to bond, recharge, and plan the future together ✈️
Great Benefits - Paid 100% by the company
Interview Process
30 minute behavioral with AJ
45 technical screen with Steve
45 minute coding interview
Paid Onsite: 1 or 2 days in office with team to experience a day in the life!
Why Work With Us
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Serve everyday people in local communities and make a large impact in an underserved market
"Y'all are incredible and have made such a difference in my life in ways both professional and personal. I'm grateful and indebted." - Noto Customer 🥰
Each customer averages over 6 hours of usage / day)
Work with a smart, collaborative, ambitious, and caring team
Fast paced environment
High levels of ownership
Fun founders + team off-sites 😄
👀 Sound Interesting?
Let’s talk. If you’re excited by the idea of building from (almost) zero to one, shaping a high-growth startup, and working with founders who actually understand engineering, we’d love to hear from you! ✉️
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