Lead Software Engineer, AI & SaaS (Contract)

**Availability:** Available for synchronous collaboration during standard Pacific Time business hours
Growth Capital is hiring a hands-on Lead Software Engineer to take over technical ownership from our current lead engineer and work directly with the CEO.
You will own the architecture, development roadmap, and operational reliability of Oasis, our SaaS platform, alongside the AI agents and internal tools supporting our agency services. You will combine technical leadership with day-to-day engineering: making architecture decisions, writing and reviewing code, shipping features, and keeping production systems reliable.
We are looking for an experienced software engineer with a traditional engineering foundation and a sustained history of working with AI that began **before January 2021**.
**What you’ll own**
- **Engineering:** Take ownership of the existing codebase, infrastructure, integrations, and technical documentation. Identify critical dependencies, outstanding issues, and gaps in system knowledge, and establish a clear plan.
- **Technical strategy and architecture:** Lead frontend, backend, database, data pipeline, and AI architecture decisions for Oasis. Evaluate tools, APIs, and platforms, and design for security, scalability, maintainability, and cost.
- **Hands-on development:** Build and maintain product features, integrations, and automation. Apply sound engineering practices across code review, testing, debugging, version control, and deployment.
- **AI infrastructure:** Develop and evolve client agents, including OpenClaw/Hermes systems, shared skill libraries, knowledge systems, and integrations. Evaluate reliability, permissions, output quality, and operating costs.
- **Product roadmap:** Own the technical backlog with the CEO. Translate business needs and client feedback into specifications, estimates, priorities, and delivery plans. Manage sprints, track progress in Asana, and communicate blockers and tradeoffs clearly.
- **Reliability and operations:** Handle issue triage, bug fixes, monitoring, database maintenance, data integrity, dependency updates, security patches, and incident response. Improve CI/CD, deployment processes, and production performance.
- **AI adoption and documentation:** Train team members, document systems and workflows, support client onboarding, and identify practical opportunities to automate manual work. Coordinate external contractors and partners when needed.
**Required experience**
- **A strong traditional software engineering background:** Substantial experience building, deploying, and maintaining production software, with a solid command of data structures, algorithms, system design, APIs, databases, testing, security, and debugging.
- **Hands-on AI experience beginning before January 2021 and continuing since:** You must be able to describe specific projects, dates, tools or models used, and your contribution. Relevant early work may include machine learning, NLP, recommendation systems, computer vision, or other applied AI.
- Experience with Shopify, Amazon and ad platform data ingestion and modeling.
- Experience building production-grade software with a real user base, not just prototypes or projects.
- Experience owning a production SaaS application across frontend, backend, data, and infrastructure.
- Experience taking over an existing codebase and making improvements while maintaining service continuity.
- Current experience building AI features or agent workflows, including integrations, evaluation, error handling, and monitoring.
- Ability to independently inspect, explain, debug, and improve code, including code produced with AI assistance.
- Experience turning business priorities into a realistic engineering roadmap and delivering against it.
- Strong written and spoken English, clear technical documentation, and confidence communicating with business stakeholders and clients.
- Availability for collaboration during Pacific Time business hours.
- **A GitHub profile submitted with your application.**
**Helpful experience**
- Convex and production database operations.
- OpenClaw, Hermes, or comparable agent frameworks.
- Shared agent skills, retrieval systems, and knowledge infrastructure.
- Slack integrations, client dashboards, and automated reporting.
- SaaS products serving multiple clients, with appropriate access controls and data separation.
- Technical leadership in a small team working directly with a founder or CEO.
**How we work**
You will work closely with the CEO, with daily check-ins during the initial ramp period and a cadence that adjusts as alignment develops. You will also join relevant team and client feedback meetings.
Work communication takes place in shared Slack channels, and Asana provides visibility into tasks, sprints, and the roadmap. We expect proactive updates on blockers, delays, and changes in scope.
The engagement includes on-call availability for critical production incidents, with coverage windows and reasonable response expectations agreed in advance. Access to code, infrastructure, and client systems is governed by our consulting agreement and confidentiality and security requirements.
**What success looks like**
You can independently operate and develop the platform, explain the architecture and its tradeoffs, maintain a prioritized roadmap, and deliver useful improvements consistently. Production issues are handled promptly, technical risks are visible, and the team has the documentation and training needed to use our AI systems effectively.
**How to apply**
Please include:
1. Your résumé or LinkedIn profile.
2. **Your GitHub profile URL — required.** Highlight two or three repositories or contributions and explain your role. If your professional work is private, include your profile and describe work you can discuss or demonstrate without sharing confidential code.
3. A brief account of your AI experience **before January 2021**, including dates, projects, technologies, and your personal contribution.
4. One example of a production system you owned or inherited, the challenges you encountered, and what you improved.
5. Your country, time zone, availability during Pacific Time business hours, and earliest start date.
6. Your expected contract rate in USD and weekly availability.
**Applications must include a GitHub profile and a clear account of AI experience predating 2021 to be considered.**

Work arrangement
Yes