Staff Software Engineer, Product Engineering - UK

Overview

Ashby's Co-Founder and VP of Engineering invites skilled and adaptable product engineers to join their team. This role involves delivering full-feature implementations end-to-end while building reusable components for broad application. Ashby combines the agility and decisive environment of an early-stage startup with the scale and stability of a growth-stage company supporting over 100,000 weekly users and prestigious clients like Notion, Shopify, and Snowflake.

About Ashby and Engineering Culture

Ashby is committed to cultivating an empowering engineering culture that values creativity, ownership, and minimal process constraints. Engineers in this environment are encouraged to own their projects fully—from researching to design, specification, and implementation—without heavy reliance on traditional agile rituals or micromanagement. Collaboration and precise communication are foundational, with a focus on providing extensive individual agency.

Role Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and ship product features independently across the technology stack.
• Create reusable technical building blocks and abstractions to simplify complex workflows.
• Conduct competitor research and draft detailed product specifications and wireframes.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and other engineers to ensure project success.
• Participate in customer research and incorporate feedback into product development.
• Contribute to strategic efforts, such as expanding the product market and increasing total addressable market by introducing talent management solutions.

Candidate Profile

• Comfortable working on various technology stack layers to deliver complete features.
• Adept at navigating ambiguous product and technical challenges, capable of innovating powerful abstractions.
• Balances speed and quality carefully to build high-standard software suitable for scaling users.
• Ambitious, committed to continuous learning and receptive to constructive feedback.
• Strong team player with excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Driven to create efficiency and leverage in workflows through automation and tooling improvements.

Engineering Environment and Culture

• Minimal processes designed to empower engineers with product ownership rather than limiting freedom.
• Deliberate communication and collaboration are encouraged, balancing focus time and meetings carefully.
• Investments in developer tooling enable quick CI/CD and frequent deployments (15+ times daily).
• Biannual in-person team meetings alongside remote collaboration supported through local meetup budgets.

Additional Information

Ashby's engineering team is increasing rapidly, aiming to double in size. The company values a team with high tenures and emphasizes ownership rather than formal mentorship due to its experienced staff composition. Candidates who prefer structured project management or strictly technical roles with no cross-functional involvement may find the culture challenging. The company seeks candidates who thrive in environments that marry technical prowess with product savvy in a startup-like setting.