Founding Engineer (Python / FastAPI / Next.js), Supply Chain SaaS

🏔️ About Sierra Studio

Sierra Studio is an innovative product development firm dedicated to empowering founders and business leaders in their quest to create impactful, meaningful products. Our team of experienced professionals is committed to delivering high-quality solutions that drive business growth. We prioritize a culture of good vibes, open communication, and continuous learning, providing our team members with the opportunities and resources they need to thrive.

This role is with one of the teams we help build through our staffing partnerships. When you apply, Sierra manages the hiring process, but you'll be hired directly by and work within the client company.

🏢 About The Company

You will be embedded at a pre-launch B2B SaaS startup building technology tools to modernize supply chain operations for consumer goods manufacturers — an industry still largely run on pen-and-paper and spreadsheets. The founder spent 6 years building 5 consumer goods brands and is building this product to solve the manufacturer pain points identified firsthand.

The first product is a production run management and communication platform, giving brands real-time visibility into their manufacturing runs, with a broader roadmap already mapped out. The company is pre-revenue with soft-committed design partners lined up to test the MVP at launch.

The founder is hands-on, highly organized, and detail-oriented — looking for a true technical partner, not just an engineer who executes tickets. You would be the company's first technical hire, working side by side with the founder daily.

🖼️ About The Role

We're hiring a founding engineer to own the product's technical foundation. You'll take a working v1 and turn it into production-grade software manufacturers run their businesses on, deciding how it's built, how it scales, and how the engineering team works as it grows.

This role is for a builder: someone who would rather ship, talk to users, and iterate than wait for a perfect spec.

🔨 What You'll Do

• Own the codebase and architecture end to end, starting with an audit of v1 and a plan for what to keep, rebuild, and harden.
• Ship full-stack features across Python, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, WebSockets, and Next.js.
• Build integrations with manufacturers' ERP systems and other third-party tools so order, inventory, and production data flow into the product without manual entry.
• Design and evolve the data model as the product expands, with clean, reversible Alembic migrations.
• Build the real-time layer that keeps manufacturers and brands looking at the same status, documents, and messages.
• Own infrastructure, deployment, and monitoring.
• Join design partner calls and turn what you hear into product decisions.
• Help shape how AI shows up in the product as we build it in.
• Set the engineering bar and help hire the engineers who come next.

🔎 You May Be a Good Fit If You

• Have 5+ years building production software, with real ownership of systems across the front end and back end.
• Have shipped a product from 0 to 1, ideally as an early engineer at a startup.
• Write Python and TypeScript fluently, and have built with FastAPI (or similar) and React or Next.js.
• Know PostgreSQL well, from schema design to query tuning and migrations.
• Have integrated with external systems and know what it takes to make them reliable: retries, idempotency, and sync conflicts.
• Make product and prioritization decisions instead of waiting for specs.
• Push back on ideas, including the founder's, and bring a better option.
• Treat tests, monitoring, and clean deploys as part of shipping, not extra work.
• Use AI tools every day to move faster.
• Write clearly and enjoy working closely with a hands-on, detail-oriented founder.

Bonus skills:

• Experience with ERP systems (e.g., NetSuite, SAP Business One, Acumatica, or QuickBooks) or with supply chain, manufacturing, or B2B operations software.
• Built real-time features with WebSockets.
• Shipped AI or LLM-powered features, such as document extraction or retrieval.
• Side projects that show range and initiative.

🤝 Who We're Looking For

This is a founding hire, so cultural fit matters as much as technical skill. We're looking for someone hyper-collaborative and clear in communication, comfortable working closely — in person — with a very hands-on, detail-oriented founder. You take initiative and ownership rather than waiting to be told what to do, and you're energized by building something from zero rather than maintaining something established.

Location: remote, based in Brazil or US, with regular in-person work sessions with the founder in the early months. Expect occasional travel to manufacturing sites to see how our users work on the production floor.

📋 Hiring Process

• 1. Initial screening
• 2. Pair coding session
• 3. Technical interview
• 4. Executive interview

Compensation: $6,000–$8,000 USD/month + an equity grant (share count and fully diluted total shared during the process).

💡 Why Join Us?

This is a rare opportunity to be the founding engineer of a company from day one — real ownership over architecture, product, and team culture starting with the very first hire. You'll be part of Sierra Studio's talent network, with access to continuous learning and a strong community of engineers, while working directly inside a founder-led startup at its earliest, highest-impact stage.