Senior Full-Stack Developer (MERN) – Foundational Technical Leadership Opportunity

We're looking for a talented Senior Full-Stack Developer to join our team and help build, scale, and improve an existing web platform with a growing user base and an ambitious product roadmap. This is an opportunity to work on meaningful product initiatives across the full stack, collaborate directly with cross-functional stakeholders, and contribute to the evolution of a modern, feature-rich application. We're seeking someone who enjoys solving problems, shipping high-quality features, and balancing execution speed with long-term maintainability. What You'll Be Working On You will help design, develop, optimize, and maintain systems across the platform, including: Core Product Features - User profiles and account management - Subscription systems - Virtual economies and credit systems - Messaging functionality - Notifications - User dashboards - Custom request workflows Discovery & Growth - Search experiences - Recommendation systems - Advanced filtering - User engagement improvements - SEO initiatives Live & Real-Time Features - Livestream infrastructure - Interactive real-time experiences - Premium live functionality Membership Systems - Membership plans - Feature gating - Enhanced access controls - Premium user experiences Platform Operations - Admin dashboards - Moderation tools - Reporting systems - Analytics integrations - Performance optimization Technology Stack Frontend - React - Next.js - TypeScript - Tailwind CSS Backend - Node.js - Express.js Database - MongoDB Atlas Infrastructure - Railway - Cloudflare - Cloudflare R2 Search - Meilisearch Analytics - Google Analytics (GA4) - Mixpanel Integrations - Experience integrating third-party APIs is highly valued. What We're Looking For You are someone who: Takes ownership of your work - Enjoys working within existing codebases - Writes clean, maintainable, well-documented code - Understands the trade-offs between speed and scalability - Communicates proactively and clearly - Is comfortable working independently - Thrives in startup environments - Thinks beyond implementation and considers product impact Required Qualifications - 5+ years of full-stack development experience - Strong React and/or Next.js experience - Strong Node.js and Express experience - Experience working with MongoDB - Experience maintaining and improving production applications - Experience integrating third-party APIs - Experience building secure authentication and authorization systems - Strong understanding of performance optimization - Experience with Git and collaborative workflows Nice-to-Have Experience Experience with any of the following is a plus: - Meilisearch - Cloudflare ecosystem - Railway deployments - WebRTC or real-time applications - Live streaming technologies - Subscription-based products - Marketplace platforms - Recommendation systems - Feature flagging - Analytics implementations - Startup environments Responsibilities - Develop and launch new product features - Improve existing architecture and code quality - Refactor and optimize legacy components when appropriate - Implement production-ready solutions - Collaborate with product, design, and QA stakeholders - Participate in technical planning and estimation - Identify and resolve bottlenecks - Contribute ideas that improve both the product and engineering processes Success Metrics Within your first 90 days, success looks like: - Becoming productive within the existing codebase - Delivering high-quality features independently - Improving performance and reliability where needed - Demonstrating ownership and strong communication - Providing thoughtful input into technical decisions Engagement Details Commitment - Long-term engagement preferred - Approximately 20–40 hours per week Compensation - Open to hourly or fixed-price arrangements depending on experience and fit. Ideal Candidate You're someone who enjoys building products that people genuinely use and wants to contribute to something meaningful over the long term. You take pride in thoughtful engineering decisions, practical execution, and delivering features that create real value. If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you. Please Include in Your Proposal - Examples of production applications you've worked on - GitHub repositories or code samples (if available) - A brief explanation of your role on those projects - Your experience working with existing MVP or production codebases - An example of an engineering decision that significantly improved a product - Your typical availability and preferred communication style We're looking for a reliable, product-minded engineer who wants to help build and scale a great product over the long term.