Lead Full Stack Engineer

Genies•Los Angeles, CA

1d•$220,000 - $260,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Genies is seeking a contract Lead Full Stack Engineer to guide the technical direction, architecture, and execution of our avatar-driven digital products. You'll be a player-coach — leading by example as a hands-on contributor while mentoring a team of talented engineers. Reporting directly to the Director of Software Engineering and Infrastructure, you'll drive technical excellence, champion engineering best practices, and ensure scalable, performant solutions across the stack. This is a high-impact role for an engineer who thrives on mentorship, system design, and building cohesive teams that ship complex, user-facing systems at the intersection of AI, game technology, and UGC creation tools. We move fast at Genies, and we expect our lead engineers to move fast with us — leveraging AI as a force multiplier while holding the bar on quality, clarity, and correctness.

Requirements

7+ years of professional full stack development experience, including at least 2 years in a technical leadership or mentorship role
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Proven ability to design and scale distributed, high-performance web applications
Expertise with modern web technologies: React, TypeScript/JavaScript (ES6+), Node.js, Next.js
Strong frontend sensibility — you care about usability, design patterns, and the details that make an interface feel right
Strong backend development experience with Go, Python, or similar languages
Fluency with NoSQL and relational database solutions
Experience building and consuming RESTful and GraphQL APIs; familiarity with event-driven architectures
Understanding of data pipelines and ETL patterns
Solid grasp of security fundamentals: OWASP Top Ten, OAuth 2.0
Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS) and CI/CD pipelines
Demonstrated AI workflow maturity — you use AI tools to increase output and can articulate when and how you apply them, not just that you do
Strong communication skills with the ability to lead both technical and non-technical discussions
Demonstrated ability to balance hands-on engineering with people leadership
Ability to navigate fast-paced environments with shifting priorities while maintaining code quality and design standards

Nice To Haves

Experience with real-time systems, WebSockets, or multiplayer architectures
Exposure to AI/ML systems, LLM integration, or digital identity platforms
Familiarity with 3D pipelines, image processing, or model-building workflows
Passion for mentoring, technical strategy, and cultivating a high-performing team culture

Responsibilities

Define and own the architectural vision and implementation strategy for full-stack systems supporting Genies' Smart Avatar ecosystem.
Establish technical standards, patterns, and scalable frameworks across both frontend and backend.
Make opinionated choices on separation of concerns and push back on overengineering.
Actively integrate AI tools into your development workflow for planning, code generation, debugging, and testing.
Critically evaluate AI-generated output — catching complexity, duplication, or architectural drift before it takes root.
Champion AI adoption across the team: identifying opportunities where AI can reduce toil, accelerate delivery, and raise the quality bar.
Share workflows, prompt strategies, and tooling discoveries that make the whole team faster — not just yourself.
Contribute directly to the codebase with a focus on maintainability, reliability, and performance.
Build intuitive, interactive user interfaces to a high frontend standard while also delivering robust APIs and backend services using technologies such as React, Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js, and Go.
Act as a player-coach for a growing team.
Provide structured mentorship, code review guidance, and ongoing feedback that fosters career growth and engineering excellence.
Partner closely with product managers, designers, and other engineering teams to translate high-level goals into technical deliverables.
Ask sharp questions during requirements gathering and translate ambiguity into clear implementation plans.
Drive initiatives that improve developer velocity, operational efficiency, and code quality.
Proactively identify technical risks, scalability challenges, and long-term architectural needs — including tradeoffs in distributed systems, CAP theorem considerations, and service design.
Champion best practices in code quality, security (OWASP Top Ten, OAuth 2.0), testing (TDD/automation coverage), and observability (alerting and monitoring).
Help shape a culture of learning, accountability, and high ownership.