Senior Full-Stack Engineer (Node.js) – Remote, Portugal

About VetPawer and Ava
VetPawer builds Ava, a veterinary-native AI platform used by more than 985 animal hospitals. Ava answers phones, books appointments, handles prescription refill requests, and calls lapsed clients to bring them back. It works inside the practice management systems clinics already use.
Most of our customers are multi-location veterinary groups, so the systems you'll work on route calls and appointments across hundreds of clinics. We're a small, fully remote team led by founders who have built and sold a veterinary software company before.
The role
We're hiring a Senior Full-Stack Engineer who knows Node.js deeply and can own Ava's application layer end to end: the backend that powers scheduling, refills, and calling, the web front end used by clinics and pet owners, and the integrations that connect Ava to clinic systems. You'll report to our Product Owner and work closely with our integrations and infrastructure leads.
What you'll do
Build and maintain features in Ava's Node.js services, including scheduling, refill handling, multi-location routing, and outbound call campaigns
Improve the stability, performance, and test coverage of a production system that runs 24/7
Build front-end experiences for online booking, website chat, and clinic dashboards
Design and maintain REST APIs and webhooks, including data feeds for enterprise customers
Work with our Twilio voice stack and with LLM and voice AI services in production
Document what you build so knowledge is shared across the team
Follow secure coding practices that support our SOC 2 program
Take part in a light, shared on-call rotation
What you bring
6+ years of software engineering, with 4+ years building production Node.js applications
Deep knowledge of Node.js: the event loop, async patterns, streams, error handling, and profiling
Strong JavaScript and TypeScript
Solid SQL and relational database skills
Experience with REST APIs, webhooks, and third-party integrations
Experience with cloud hosting, CI/CD, and monitoring
Comfort taking over a codebase you didn't write and improving it safely
Fluent written and spoken English
Nice to have
Twilio or other telephony experience
Experience building with LLM APIs or conversational AI
Background in healthcare, veterinary, or scheduling software
Experience in a SOC 2 audited environment
Location
Fully remote, based in Portugal
At least 4 hours of daily overlap with U.S. Eastern Time (about 2:00 to 6:00 pm Lisbon time)
EUR 60,000 to 80,000 gross annual, paid in 14 installments
Meal allowance, private health insurance, and paid time off
How to apply
Apply here with your resume and a short note about a Node.js system you know well: what it did, what broke, and how you fixed it. Our process is an intro call, a technical conversation that includes walking through real code, and a final conversation with our CEO.

Work arrangement
Yes