Founding Engineer - NYC
Afterword
Posted on Jan 31, 2024
Founding Engineer - NYC
$130k – $180k • 0.25% – 1.0%
Overview
We’re looking for a generalist engineer and leader who believes in our mission of helping families after a loved one dies. As a founding engineer, you’ll play a critical role in shaping our product & technology roadmap. Your work will include a wide variety of technologies to launch new features for our funeral platform. You’ll collaborate directly with the cofounders on every part of the stack and help improve the funeral planning experience for millions of Americans every year.
Location: NYC
Responsibilities
Design, build, test, and monitor features across our platform. You’re a full-stack engineer who doesn’t shy away from unfamiliar or challenging problems. You’ll have complete ownership and autonomy in exploring, scoping, and ultimately solving some of the most challenging problems we face.
Help lead the technical direction of the company and build a world-class engineering team. You’ll be driving our platform forward and making critical decisions about our architecture and internal tooling. As we grow, you’ll be instrumental in building a lean and powerful team.
Work closely with the founding team to shape our product and technology roadmap. We don’t have all the answers—we’re hoping you can help. Together we’ll design our product roadmap and plan for our long-term future as a company.
Wear multiple hats, sometimes at the same time. You may be asked to help perform UX research, write the first draft of a design doc, or help onboard a customer who’s unfamiliar with our systems.
Requirements
Experience working in a fast-paced environment and delivering results quickly. Startup experience is a major plus.
Strong experience with TypeScript/React, Node, GatsbyJS, and Firebase. Our tech stack is Javascript-focused, but we also have tools in Python, SQL, and Bash.
Urgent propensity towards action. There are millions of people and thousands of organizations who can benefit from our services, and we need to operate swiftly, with a strong sense of purpose.
Clear, concise, and down-to-earth communication. Nobody's royalty here. You can speak to everyone as if they're a friendly acquaintance.
Comfort being close to death & grieving families. (If you've made it this far, we think you’ve met this one already. But in case it wasn't clear, you'll be talking about death every day.)
Benefits
Medical/Dental/Vision Plans
401K Plan
New Laptop
How to Apply
We’d love to hear from you. Email me at zack@afterword.com.
About Us
Afterword is on a mission to make funeral planning easier for everyone.
Everything we do at Afterword is to support families during one of the worst moments in their life. We have a bold, 10+ year vision to support families in every imaginable way.
Effie's story
I started Afterword after my dad died in August 2018. Never having planned a funeral before, my first instinct was to try to plan his service in the way that felt most comfortable to me – online. While I didn't grow up above a funeral home, Afterword is, in essence, a family business. My dad is the reason it exists, and the work we do is personal.
We know your work is personal, too. I’ve gained a deep appreciation for the crucial role that funeral directors play in the communities they serve. It’s because of this that we know software can never replace them. Regardless of age or generation, there will always be families who want to plan in-person. But there are also those, like me, who are more comfortable making these difficult decisions online. With this in mind, we've built the planning experience I wish I had years ago.
Empathy Meets Innovation
Before Afterword our team worked at some of the biggest tech companies like Google, Shopify, and Workday. We took our technical backgrounds and moved into a funeral home to learn as much as we could about how you serve your communities. We sat in arrangements, listened to first calls, attended removals, watched embalmings, and observed as you reentered the decedent's name into all of your systems. Similar to funeral service, everything we build has the family’s best interest at heart. We know that together we can blend tradition with innovation to meet the needs of today’s funeral planners.