Hands-On R&D Team Lead

An early-stage consumer technology company is building a new B2C membership platform launching in Australia.

The product combines subscriptions, exclusive offers and discounts, merchant tools, rewards, gamification, CRM, dashboards, analytics, payments, and marketing/tracking infrastructure into one consumer-facing platform.

This is an opportunity to join as one of the first technical hires and lead the engineering build from zero. The role is not a VP R&D position and not a pure management role- it is designed for a hands-on technical leader who will code most of the time while shaping the product, architecture, and engineering execution.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end engineering build of a new consumer membership platform from zero.
• Design and develop full-stack product features using Node.js, TypeScript, and React.
• Own core architecture decisions across backend, frontend, payments, CRM, dashboards, analytics, and merchant-facing tools.
• Build scalable systems that support subscriptions, offers, rewards, gamification, and user engagement flows.
• Remain highly hands-on, contributing directly to code, technical design, code reviews, and delivery.
• Establish engineering standards, development workflows, and technical foundations for a fast-moving early-stage product.
• Lead and mentor engineers as the team grows, while maintaining strong ownership over execution and product quality.

Required Qualifications

• At least 7 years of software development experience
• Proven experience as a Hands-on Team Lead or Tech Lead
• Strong hands-on Full Stack / Backend experience with Node.js, TypeScript, and React
• Proven experience building systems and architecture from scratch
• Experience working in early-stage startup environments
• Strong ownership mindset, ability to move fast, and comfort working in a zero-to-one product environment.
• Ability to combine hands-on coding with technical leadership, product thinking, and execution.
• Experience working closely with product, business, and external stakeholders.

Job No. 500304