Full-Stack Developer — Personalized Storybook Generator (Contract)

We're building a new kind of gift: a children's storybook where the reader is the hero. Parents pick a story, pick an art style, upload a photo of their child, and receive a beautifully illustrated, personalized book — ordered through a Shopify store, printed, and shipped to their door. The stories are written. The art direction is set. What's missing is the person who can turn that into a real, working product — and that's you. What you'll actually be building A templated personalization engine, not a from-scratch generative AI system. Concretely: 10 story templates, each with fixed text (we're writing these — you're not generating story copy) 3 illustration styles per story (we're art-directing these — you're not designing the art) A web app where a customer: Picks a story and a style Enters their child's name (and any other personalization fields the story needs) Uploads a photo Sees a live preview of their personalized book before buying A pipeline that composites the child's photo/likeness into the illustrated pages consistently across the whole book A Shopify storefront where the finished, personalized book becomes a purchasable product, and the order — including all personalization data and the final print-ready file — flows through to fulfillment An admin/back-office view so we can see orders, reprint if needed, and add new stories or styles ourselves over time without needing you for every update This is a real product with real customers by this holiday season — not a prototype. What we're providing (so you're not starting from zero) All 10 story texts, finished and ready to build against Art style direction and reference images for all 3 styles A working prototype of the personalization flow (attached) showing the intended UX A printer/fulfillment partner — you don't need to source or manage print production, just get order + print-ready files to them in the format they require What you need to bring Backend Strong experience building web applications end-to-end (Node.js, Python, or similar) Comfortable with image processing/compositing (overlaying, masking, or blending a user photo into a template — this is the technical core of the product) API integration experience — you'll connect to Shopify's API and likely a third-party image-generation or image-processing API Solid data handling: this product touches children's photos, so you understand secure storage, retention limits, and deletion on request as table stakes, not an afterthought Frontend Genuine design sensibility, not just component-assembly. This is a gifting product — the preview experience is the moment that sells the book, and it needs to feel delightful, not like a form Comfortable building a smooth, mobile-first flow (most traffic will come from Meta/TikTok ads straight to a phone) Experience with a modern frontend framework (React/Next.js preferred, since it pairs cleanly with Shopify's ecosystem) Shopify Direct experience building or integrating custom apps/products with Shopify (Shopify Functions, Storefront API, or custom app development) Understanding of how to pass custom/personalized product data through Shopify's checkout and order flow cleanly Nice to have, not required Prior experience with any print-on-demand or photo-book product (Shopify or otherwise) Experience with AI image generation APIs (fal.ai, Replicate, or similar) if we later expand beyond fixed templates Familiarity with Lulu, Peecho, or Gelato's print APIs (useful context even though we're supplying the printer relationship) What ownership looks like You are the single technical owner of this build. We're not looking for someone to execute a rigid spec line-by-line — we're looking for someone who can look at "customer uploads a photo and gets a personalized book preview" and make smart, opinionated calls on how to build that well, flag problems before they become expensive, and tell us plainly when something we're asking for is a bad idea.