Founding Engineer - Senior/Staff

Noto is building the AI native operating system for after school businesses like tutoring centers, music schools, and sports academies. Our mission is to power the 150K after-school businesses across the U.S. with a unified platform that replaces spreadsheets and outdated tools.

We recently raised a $3.8 M seed from Base10 Partners and South Park Commons.

Founded by two technical founders — AJ Ding (CEO) and Steve Wang (CTO) — we’re based in NYC and assembling a small, exceptional team of builders who care deeply about craft, users, and impact.

Join us to build software that empowers small-business owners in local communities!

(us at karaoke with one of our favorite customers)

AJ Ding (CEO) - Second-time founder and previously built an AI recruiting company. He was a machine learning engineer and data scientist at Quora, Lyft, & Meta. He studied Statistics at Yale and most importantly, he comes from a family of small business owners.

Steve Wang (CTO) - Former Head of Engineering at Nitra (a16z backed vertical SaaS). He's worked in data science and engineering at Lyft. He studied math at Harvard, and his family is from Canada.

• 4 days in-office (Union Square area)

• 1 day remote per week

• 1 week per quarter work from anywhere

• Occasional travel for team off sites and customer visits

• High Camaraderie: We are in the trenches together and celebrate our collective success.

• Low Ego: We believe in collaboration over hierarchy 🤝. We have a flat decision-making structure—great ideas can come from anywhere.

• High Output: Expect an intense, high-growth environment — roughly 55-60 hours on average. We invest that time because every week moves the product forward and our users closer to success.

• Have Fun: Hackathons in Mexico City 🌮, karaoke with customers, team off-sites.

• Growth Mindset: We attend industry events and learn directly from our users.

We’re hiring a Senior or Staff Level Founding Engineer who will partner directly with our CTO (Steve) to help lead product, engineering, and design.

This is not a typical developer role.

You will:

• 🧭 Drive engineering execution – help with sprint planning, code reviews, and release quality.

• 🧩 Collaborate cross-functionally – work with QA, design, Customer Success, Sales, and GTM to guide product decision making, drive architecture, and shape how we build as we scale.

• ⚙️ Build with ownership – ship large features end-to-end, define engineering culture and process as we scale.

• 🏗️ Set technical direction – make architectural decisions that shape our next 3 years of growth.

• 🤝 Mentor & unblock others – be the first line of defense for technical and product questions and help the team move faster.

• Comfortable leading projects

• Hungry for growth and impact. There’s no ceiling to your growth here— take on as much responsibility as you’re ready for

• Thrives in ambiguous environments and takes ownership end-to-end

• Excited to help small businesses thrive through technology

• 5+ years of experience

• Full-stack (React, Next.js, Node, Postgres)

We value product-minded engineers who think like founders. You’ll own features end-to-end and help shape the roadmap.

We tolerate messiness to ship quickly, but take responsibility for cleaning up our tech debt.

As the founding engineering, you will help shape a strong engineering culture that keeps us efficient and motivated:

1. Always Be Shipping – Progress over perfection, iterate quickly

2. Pride in our Craft – Quality matters - we take pride in our work

3. Serve the Customer – Our users run small businesses; we exist to make their lives easier

• Competitive pay and meaningful equity 📈

• Office lunch and a stipend for work-related expenses 🍕

• Company Retreats – Join us for team retreats to bond, recharge, and plan the future together ✈️

• 100 % company-paid benefits 🏥

1. 30 min behavioral with AJ

2. 45 min System Design

3. 45 min Coding Interview

4. Onsite (in NYC) to experience a day in the life

• Serve everyday people in local communities and make a large impact in an underserved market

  • "Y'all are incredible and have made such a difference in my life in ways both professional and personal. I'm grateful and indebted." - Noto Customer 🥰

  • Each customer averages over 6 hours of usage / day)

• Work with a smart, collaborative, ambitious, and caring team

• Fast paced environment

• High level of ownership

• Fun founders + team off-sites 😄

Let’s talk. If you’re excited to build from ( almost ) zero to one, own meaningful parts of the stack, and help scale a product loved by educators and creators, we’d love to meet you! ✉️