Lead Engineer (Technical Owner) – Full Stack

Shibari Study

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

This is a senior individual contributor role designed for someone who wants to grow into broader technical leadership. You will have meaningful ownership from day one. The team is deeply AI-forward. You will be provided with a Claude Code Pro account ($200/mo) and are expected to actively leverage AI-assisted workflows to maximize development velocity and decision-making. What you will work on (First 3 Months): 1. Zero-to-One Initiatives Studio Partnership Program: Architect and ship the core MVP for this greenfield product. Lead the end-to-end implementation including backend, analytics, and reliable instrumentation. Sequence milestones to ensure the system is maintainable and ready for rapid post-launch iteration. 2. In-house Architecture Roadmap Headless Platform Migration: Lead the transition from a legacy template-based hosting setup to a decoupled, in-house frontend. Build the API integration layer between our existing backend infrastructure and our custom stack to unlock UI flexibility and performance. Standardize event tracking and attribution across the ecosystem to ensure data-grounded product decisions. 3. Technical Operating Cadence: Establish a high-velocity release workflow using GitHub and environment-specific deployments. Implement a triage rhythm and a “single source of truth” for technical priorities. Build out observability and reliability standards to eliminate "flying blind" during shipments. Stack Context: You will manage and evolve a modern, decoupled architecture: AWS: Primary cloud infrastructure. GitHub: Version control, CI/CD, and environment management. Video Platform (Headless): Video and tutorial hosting via API. Shopify: Commerce and storefront management. Analytics: GA4, custom event tracking, and attribution dashboards.

Requirements

We’re looking for someone who can operate as the senior technical owner of a small but ambitious company.
Strong judgment on what to build vs. what to avoid
Ability to turn ambiguous goals into clear technical plans
Architectural ownership and leadership
Comfort making decisions, documenting them, and aligning stakeholders
Ability to lead execution while keeping the system stable and understandable
Execution capability (hands-on): You can implement key pieces yourself when needed
You keep momentum without sacrificing quality
You ship in iterations and don’t get stuck in theoretical perfection
Proven experience owning and driving technical delivery in a startup or small team environment
Strong full-stack fundamentals and the ability to work across frontend, backend, and infrastructure
Strong JavaScript/TypeScript foundation and modern web development experience
Experience integrating third-party services and APIs
Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS) and production operations
Strong GitHub workflow competence (branches, PRs, code reviews, CI/CD)
Strong communication skills in English (German is a plus)

Nice To Haves

Experience with templated / theme-based web platforms and migrations away from legacy customizations
Experience with Shopify ecosystems and commerce integrations
Familiarity with analytics tooling (e.g., GA, event tracking, product analytics, dashboards)
Experience introducing lightweight incident response routines (on-call not required, but discipline is)

Responsibilities

Own technical planning and delivery across product initiatives (scope, sequence, tradeoffs, timelines)
Triage, prioritize, and resolve incoming technical issues with a calm, structured approach
Partner with product/design to shape solutions that are maintainable and measurable
Lead the buildout of new product initiatives (including standalone feature areas with backend + analytics)
Reduce legacy dependency and establish a clear path to a transition to custom solution
Maintain and extend cloud infrastructure (AWS), including reliability, cost awareness, and performance
Manage and improve deployment pipelines and workflows using GitHub (PR hygiene, environments, releases)
Set sensible engineering standards (logging, monitoring, testing expectations, documentation)
Improve analytics instrumentation
Support and unblock other teams with clear technical communication (without becoming a helpdesk)