Full-Stack Developer - No agency

No Agency - Long term contract - Required Vue.js, Node.js Experience - US time zone We are looking for a highly experienced **Senior Full-Stack Engineer** to help design, build, review, document, and maintain a growing production web application. The most important requirement is your ability to take a **high-level or loosely defined feature idea and independently turn it into a clear, implementation-ready technical specification** that another developer can follow with minimal additional explanation. You should be comfortable: * Understanding business requirements and user flows * Reviewing an existing codebase and architecture * Designing APIs, database changes, and application behavior * Defining edge cases, validation, security, and permissions * Writing clear technical specifications, Jira stories, and acceptance criteria * Identifying performance and regression risks * Reviewing other developers' code * Troubleshooting production issues across frontend, backend, database, and infrastructure ### Required Technical Skills Strong hands-on experience with: * Node.js / Express.js * Vue.js / Vue 3 * JavaScript / TypeScript * MongoDB, database design, queries, and indexing * REST API design * Linux production environments * Git / GitHub / Pull Requests * Jira * Automated testing * Technical documentation and specification writing * Authentication, authorization, and application security * Performance optimization * Production debugging and troubleshooting * CI/CD and deployment workflows * Code review You should be comfortable investigating problems across the **Vue frontend, Node/Express backend, MongoDB, APIs, permissions, deployment, and Linux environment**. ### Technical Documentation You will regularly receive incomplete requirements. You should be able to independently: 1. Understand the business goal and user requirements. 2. Review the existing system. 3. Identify technical questions, risks, and dependencies. 4. Design the technical solution. 5. Create an implementation-ready specification. 6. Define acceptance criteria and testing requirements. 7. Break larger features into logical development tasks. 8. Review the final implementation against the specification. The goal is **clear and technically accurate documentation that removes ambiguity**, not unnecessarily long documentation. ### Experience Requirements This is a **senior-level position**, not a junior or mid-level role. We strongly prefer candidates with: * **8+ years of professional software development experience** * **5+ years within established companies, SaaS companies, or professional engineering organizations** * Significant experience with mature production SaaS or web applications * Experience owning features from requirements through design, development, testing, review, and production * Experience designing technical work for other developers * Strong production troubleshooting and code review experience * Ability to work independently with minimal supervision ### Individual Freelancers Only **No agencies, development shops, outsourcing companies, or team accounts.** You must personally perform the work. Please do not apply on behalf of another developer or propose replacing yourself with another team member. ### When Applying Please answer these questions: 1. How many total years of professional software engineering experience do you have? 2. How many years have you worked within established companies or professional engineering organizations? 3. Briefly describe your experience with Node.js, Express, Vue 3, MongoDB, Linux, Git/GitHub, and Jira. 4. Describe a mature production SaaS or web application you personally worked on for an extended period. 5. Give one example of turning a high-level feature idea into a detailed technical specification for another developer. 6. What do you typically include in a technical feature specification? 7. Describe your experience reviewing another developer's code and identifying functional, security, performance, or regression issues. 8. Describe a difficult production issue you personally diagnosed and resolved in a Linux environment. **Strong professional English communication skills are required.**