Founding Engineer
Posted on:
September 23, 2025
Job description
What it means to be a Founding Engineer with us
This isn’t just about writing code. It’s about shaping the product, setting the technical foundations of the company, and influencing how we scale. You’ll be stepping into a company that’s already proven early traction and now needs someone to take the technical reins as we move into the next stage of our journey.
You’ll think beyond features to architecture, scalability, and the long-term shape of an AI-first platform. You’ll be trusted to make decisions, asked to challenge ours, and encouraged to bring your own perspective on how to build better.
Being our founding engineer means leaning into the hard problems and challenging the way things have always been done. You’ll be part of a team from day one, moving fast, learning as we go, and building something that lasts.
Responsibilities
About the role
You’ll shape the way Hello Canopy is built: the product, the platform, and the foundations of our technical strategy. You’ll get to deeply understand our customers and their problems then use that to help decide how we build, and why we build it that way.
- Take ownership of technical decision making and product architecture.
- Shape our approach to building AI first: from evaluating models and infrastructure to ensuring we use AI in ways that are scalable, safe, and valuable for our customers.
- Bring a product mindset, weighing business implications, risks, and opportunities as we scale from MVP to platform.
- Work side by side with us (the co-founders), product design, and our customers.
- Be hands-on in building the next evolution of the platform while laying the groundwork for scale.
README: Don't self select out! If you don't meet all the above points, that's ok. We will want to hear from you.
Our stack
A quick overview of our current stack. We’re always trying new tools and what’s most important to us, is balancing ‘build for now’ or ‘build for scale’.
- React.js and Next.js
- Typescript
- Vercel
- Supabase (PostgreSQL)
Job requirements
About you
We’re less tied to titles and more interested in experience. You might call yourself senior, lead, or something else entirely, but what matters is your ability to make informed decisions and build with impact.
You might be a great fit if you:
- Are a full-stack engineer who can work across the stack, with a thoughtful view on how different layers fit together and an eye for how technical decisions flow through the whole product.
- Care about building and shipping in ways that add real value and impact for customers, then measuring, learning, and improving from there.
- Can zoom in and zoom out. You bring attention to detail in everything from design choices to the implications of back-end architecture, and you can just as easily step into a leadership meeting and workshop the company’s next move.
- Have ideally worked in a startup or scaleup and know the speed, the ambiguity, and the breadth of what it takes to build something new.
Where you're based: Our co-founders are in Sydney and work hybrid between home and WeWork, but you can be anywhere in Australia. However, working together in person on big hairy problems is sometimes needed and we'd arrange you to come to Sydney from time to time.
Why join us
You’ll be joining at the ground level of an early stage startup that is shaping a new category in HR tech. We’re building a company and a team that are deeply driven by values and by creating impact. We don’t believe in moving fast just to break things, because not everything needs to be, or should be, broken. Instead, we use our experience to know when to go fast and when to slow down. As co-founders, we’re committed to building a place where people can do their life’s best work, with the balance that makes that possible.
What that looks like in practice:
- A full-time role with equity so you share in the value you help create.
- A seat at the table as part of the founding team, shaping not just the product but the company we are building.
- Deep involvement in customer conversations, product strategy, and commercial decisions. We don’t gatekeep context.
- The opportunity to work on AI at the ground floor, making decisions that will shape the platform for years to come.
If you have any questions or want additional details, please reach out to us. This email address goes straight to both our co-founders: careers@hellocanopy.io
Apply now
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