Founding Engineer - Senior/Staff
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is to power the 150K after-school businesses across the U.S. with a unified platform that replaces spreadsheets and outdated tools.
We recently raised a $3.8 M seed from Base10 Partners and South Park Commons.
Founded by two technical founders — AJ Ding (CEO) and Steve Wang (CTO) — we’re based in NYC and assembling a small, exceptional team of builders who care deeply about craft, users, and impact.
Join us to build software that empowers small-business owners in local communities!
(us at karaoke with one of our favorite customers)
Team Background 🤝🏻
AJ Ding (CEO) - 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 Wang (CTO) - Former Head of Engineering at Nitra (a16z backed vertical SaaS). He's worked in data science and engineering at Lyft. He studied math at Harvard, and his family is from Canada.
Location 📍
4 days in-office (Union Square area)
1 day remote per week
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 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.
High Output: Expect an intense, high-growth environment — roughly 55-60 hours on average. We invest that time because every week moves the product forward and our users closer to success.
Have Fun: Hackathons in Mexico City 🌮, karaoke with customers, team off-sites.
Growth Mindset: We attend industry events and learn directly from our users.
The Role 🎯
We’re hiring a Senior or Staff Level Founding Engineer who will partner directly with our CTO (Steve) to help lead product, engineering, and design.
This is not a typical developer role.
You will:
🧭 Drive engineering execution – help with sprint planning, code reviews, and release quality.
🧩 Collaborate cross-functionally – work with QA, design, Customer Success, Sales, and GTM to guide product decision making, drive architecture, and shape how we build as we scale.
⚙️ Build with ownership – ship large features end-to-end, define engineering culture and process as we scale.
🏗️ Set technical direction – make architectural decisions that shape our next 3 years of growth.
🤝 Mentor & unblock others – be the first line of defense for technical and product questions and help the team move faster.
Ideal Candidate 💡
Comfortable leading projects
Hungry for growth and impact. There’s no ceiling to your growth here— take on as much responsibility as you’re ready for
Thrives in ambiguous environments and takes ownership end-to-end
Excited to help small businesses thrive through technology
5+ years of experience
Full-stack (React, Next.js, Node, Postgres)
Engineering Culture 🛠️
We value product-minded engineers who think like founders. You’ll own features end-to-end and help shape 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 📈
Office lunch and a stipend for work-related expenses 🍕
Company Retreats – Join us for team retreats to bond, recharge, and plan the future together ✈️
100 % company-paid benefits 🏥
Interview Process 🧩
30 min behavioral with AJ
45 min System Design
45 min Coding Interview
Onsite (in NYC) to experience a day in the life
Why Work With Us ❤️
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 level of ownership
Fun founders + team off-sites 😄
👀 Sound Interesting?
Let’s talk. If you’re excited to build from ( almost ) zero to one, own meaningful parts of the stack, and help scale a product loved by educators and creators, we’d love to meet you! ✉️