Founding Product Engineer

Founding Product Engineer (Full-Stack)

Hybrid Remote (U.S. Los Angeles preferred)

About Knowlej

• Knowlej is building the engagement infrastructure for K–12 education.
• We connect student actions like attendance, learning, and participation to real-world rewards, financial pathways, and future opportunity.
• Our platform powers schools, districts, and partners to drive engagement at scale while giving students access to incentives, experiences, and long-term economic mobility.
• We are moving from early traction to a scalable national platform.

About the Role

• We’re hiring our first Founding Product Engineer to build the core of the platform.
• You will work directly with the founder to define, build, and scale the product from this stage forward.
• This is a high-ownership role with real influence over architecture, product direction, and speed of execution.
• You are not joining a team. You are helping build the team.

What You’ll Do

• Build and ship full-stack product features end-to-end
• Own technical architecture, stack decisions, and system design
• Lead integrations across APIs, SSO, and partner platforms
• Improve performance, scalability, and data infrastructure
• Translate product vision into fast, iterative releases
• Help establish engineering standards and future hiring direction

Who You Are

• 4–8+ years of full-stack experience
• Strong with modern frameworks (React, Node, or similar)
• Product-minded with strong intuition for user experience
• Comfortable operating with ownership, ambiguity, and speed
• Able to take ideas from 0 to shipped without heavy structure

Bonus

• Experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup
• Experience building platforms, marketplaces, or API-driven systems
• Interest in education, financial access, or mission-driven products

Compensation

• $150,000 – $170,000 base salary
• Meaningful equity (1% – 2.5%, depending on experience and scope)

What Success Looks Like

• You take ownership of the product quickly
• You ship consistently and raise the velocity of the company
• You help build a scalable technical foundation for growth
• You become a core leader in the company’s next phase