Senior DevTools Full Stack Engineer (Compilers & CLI)

Lingo.dev Story & Mission

We started Lingo.dev at a hackathon and, after winning the best dev tool award, we just kept building. It evolved into a developer-loved toolkit with over 7,000 weekly CLI uses and 5,000 GitHub stars. We are grateful to have graduated from the world's best startup accelerator and secured venture funding to continue building category-defining developer tools and libraries.

Your mission is to be the technical owner of our core TypeScript-based tooling ecosystem (Compiler, CLI, CI/CD agents). Adoption has been growing fast, and we’re seeing a constant stream of feature requests from the community. Your job is to keep this toolchain fast, extensible, and beautifully engineered so we can keep shipping powerful new capabilities without losing reliability or performance.

Please don’t use AI to apply. We’re an AI-native company, and we can tell if you do. Your application will be declined as disrespectful.

How We Work

• Craftsmanship Over Bureaucracy: We hire owners who are driven by the craft of engineering. You work directly with the founders to solve fundamental problems and drive the product forward, not just to close tickets.

• Global & Remote: We are fully remote with a small, international team. We require a 2-4 hour workday overlap with PST (San Francisco). This time is used for synchronous brainstorming and design collaboration, because it's much more fun and effective to share ideas together. Expect occasional travel to meet the team in-person as well.

• Partnership: You will be working directly with the founders and a small team of other senior engineers. We prioritize high-bandwidth collaboration and direct technical partnership.

• Intensity: This is a Senior-level (5+ years), high-intensity role. We are building a category-defining product, and we expect candidates who are ready to drive complex features from design to deployment.

The Work & Cadence (Extreme Ownership)

Our roadmap is fueled by direct customer feedback and the strong product intuition of the team.

• The Scope: System ownership of our tooling architecture. You will design and evolve the core architecture for our TypeScript-based compiler (AST traversal/manipulation) and high-performance CLI so it can keep up with a rapidly expanding surface area and community use cases.

• The Process (Inhale/Exhale): We structure our work to maximize both focus and customer empathy.

• End-to-End Implementation: We don't hand out tasks; we hand out exciting challenges and important customer problems. You are expected to ingest a user need, draft a technical design, review your approach with the founders and team, and drive the implementation to deployment - including tests and documentation.

• Inhale (Deep Work): Three sprints dedicated to core roadmap and technical architecture.

• Exhale (Customer Focus): One sprint dedicated to the on-call rotation: direct customer support, rapid feature requests, and bug fixes.

• High-Bandwidth Sync: We avoid micromanagement via high-bandwidth synchronization. You will sync on the architectural approach before writing code so we are all building the same thing. Once aligned, you execute fully.

• Visibility: We have regular weekly or biweekly Demo Days where every team member presents their achievements and plans.

Technical Requirements (Craftsmanship)

• Computer Science: Deep expertise in algorithms, system design, and Computer Science fundamentals is non-negotiable.

• Core Stack: Expert knowledge of TypeScript and Node.js.

• Compilers & Tooling (Must-Have): Proven experience or demonstrable projects involving ASTs, compiler design, transpilers, or building robust developer tools (e.g., Babel/ESLint plugins, IDE extensions).

• Architectural Depth: We demand clean encapsulation and clear architectural thinking.

• Side Projects: You have demonstrably built side projects or open-source tools used by others.

• Context over Ego: We practice "strong opinions, loosely held." We expect you to push back during the design phase if you see a better way. However, once we decide on a path, we all commit to the execution.

• Soft Skills: Fluent in English. Speaking multiple languages is a plus.

• Embracing AI: You are excited about the future of software and actively follow updates. You use AI/agentic tools and workflows to enhance your productivity and the product.

Interview Process

The process is designed to find craftsmen:

1. Screening Call (Technical/Cultural Fit).

2. Live Coding / Technical Project: A session focused on evaluating your Computer Science fundamentals and architectural depth (e.g., Algorithms, System Design).

3. Final Deep Dive (System Design & Partnership).

Do Not Apply If:

• You are looking for passive, hands-off remote work with minimal team interaction.

• Your primary motivation is to assemble pre-packaged hype frameworks rather than build solutions from the ground up using core React and Node.js principles.

• You are unwilling to prioritize customer needs and product uniqueness over your preferred rigid patterns or tools.

• You are resistant to integrating modern AI/agentic tools into your workflow or you believe that the role of an engineer should not evolve with new automation technologies.