Staff Software Engineer, Product Engineering

Position Overview

Ashby is searching for a versatile and persistent Staff Software Engineer to join our Product Engineering team. This role invites an innovative engineer who will develop reusable components across the technology stack and champion the autonomy necessary to build exceptional software. You'll be entrusted to deliver end-to-end product features in a fast-paced, minimal-meeting environment, shaping Ashby's talent acquisition and management products used by over 100,000 weekly active users.

About Ashby and Engineering Culture

We combine the agility and autonomy of an early-stage startup with the validation and scale of a growth-stage company, boasting tens of millions in ARR with rapid growth and low churn. Our notable clients include Notion, Linear, Shopify, and Snowflake. We foster a culture empowering engineers with ownership over product decisions, minimal process interference, and ample opportunity for creativity and innovation without frequent meetings or micromanagement.

Role Responsibilities

• Lead ownership of substantial segments of product features, engaging in all aspects from research and specification to design and implementation.
• Create highly reusable and scalable components that serve as foundational building blocks across Ashby’s products.
• Conduct competitor analysis and produce product specifications and wireframes to guide development.
• Collaborate closely with stakeholders – including product managers, designers, and infrastructure teams – to ensure feature success.
• Deliver features demonstrating balance between rapid iteration and high-quality standards, impacting customer success directly.

Examples of Work

• Developed automated interview scheduling logic to solve complex calendar availability matching for candidates and interviewers.
• Constructed a declarative filter system enabling users to create complex queries consistently across records and compile them into backend SQL.
• Owned and executed a complete offer signing workflow integrated within the Ashby platform, involving customer interaction, technology prototyping, and cross-team collaboration.

What Makes You a Good Fit

• Comfortable tackling full stack tasks and adapting to multiple technical domains as needed to ship impactful features.
• Experienced with ambiguous product and technical problems, leveraging customer insights to build flexible, powerful abstractions.
• Adept at balancing velocity with quality in product delivery, thriving in environments valuing craftsmanship and urgency.
• Ambitious self-improver open to constructive feedback and eager to expand skills and ownership.
• Effective communicator and collaborator who regularly updates and consults relevant team members to drive projects forward.
• Proactive in creating efficiencies and leverage through automation, tooling enhancements, and abstraction development.

Who This Role Is Not Suitable For

• Those who view senior engineering as primarily project management or architecture review roles rather than building and delivering.
• Candidates dependent on structured, process-heavy environments such as strict sprint planning or detailed project oversight.
• Applicants expecting only exciting, novel work, avoiding routine customer support or problem resolution tasks.
• Engineers who prefer detailed upfront planning over iterative, autonomous development.
• Developers who haven't led or owned projects independently or are used to task distribution by others.
• Individuals seeking to mentor junior engineers extensively; our team is largely senior with limited formal mentorship roles.

Engineering Culture and Values

• Minimized processes with maximized ownership, where engineers take responsibility for product and design decisions typically handled by managers.
• Natural, culture-driven collaboration combined with deliberate and succinct communication practices.
• Investments in superior tooling and abstractions to amplify developer leverage rather than increase headcount.
• Commitment to diversity and inclusion alongside fostering a work culture that supports reasonable working hours and sustainable pace.

Additional Context

Our engineering team deploys frequently with fast CI/CD pipelines and features robust debugging tools. We maintain a low-meeting count to maximize focus time and gather in person biannually for team cohesion. The team currently aims to double its size, working on expanding talent acquisition and talent management software serving a wide and growing audience. This role is crucial in helping Ashby continue its innovation and industry-leading software excellence.