CleverLabs - Hands-On Tech Lead (Full-Stack & AI)

October 15, 2026

Remote

Lead

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English is required
C1 level

Description

Hands-on Tech Lead role for an early-stage travel and loyalty product that consolidates loyalty programs, credit card rewards, and memberships with an AI chat layer powered by Claude. The hire guides the frontend, backend, and AI/ML team through architecture decisions, infrastructure choices, API integrations, and delivery quality. The role works directly with the founders, existing CTO, and Chief Product Officer as a full-time remote team-augmentation engagement.

Responsibilities

Lead and mentor the frontend, backend, and AI/ML team, guiding architecture, infrastructure, integrations, and delivery quality, translating product priorities into scoped tasks with acceptance criteria, ownership, and coordinated dependencies
Drive work from planning through implementation, testing, and release, removing blockers and communicating progress, risks, and tradeoffs to the founders and CTO
Assess the existing MVP and agree with the CTO on what to retain, refactor, or rebuild, balancing product delivery with reliability and maintainability
Work with engineers to resolve technical blockers, assess implementation approaches, and design reliable integration and data flows, contributing code or prototypes where they validate a solution
Review code and architecture across the stack, verifying that frontend, backend, and AI/ML components work together and meet the agreed quality bar
Validate AI-generated code and AI-powered features through review, testing, and evaluation, keeping deterministic calculations and business rules reliable
Research third-party services, compare integration options, and recommend suitable providers, leading technical discussions with external companies on API capabilities, requirements, and constraints
Establish practical code review, testing, CI/CD, release, monitoring, and incident-handling practices appropriate for a small team
Coach engineers and interns, give actionable feedback, and help the team improve technical judgment and delivery ownership
Protect sensitive user data, enforce appropriate access controls, and support partner security reviews and the path toward SOC 2

Requirements

8+ years building and operating production software, including demonstrated responsibility for leading engineers and delivering a product or a substantial product area
Experience as a Tech Lead, Engineering Lead, or Engineering Manager combining strong software engineering background with team leadership, architecture decisions, and delivery ownership
Experience coordinating work across frontend and backend, making architecture decisions, reviewing code, and resolving integration and release issues
Strong Python engineering experience with the ability to review backend code, guide API design, and make architecture decisions across a full-stack system
Evidence of taking an early product to real users or bringing a fast-built MVP to a reliable production standard
Ability to break ambiguous goals into implementable tasks, set priorities with stakeholders, manage dependencies, and maintain a clear view of delivery risks
Production API integration experience, including validation, retries, idempotency, failure handling, and data consistency
Practical understanding of LLM integrations, tool calling, structured outputs, and evaluation, with judgment to distinguish model reasoning from deterministic business logic
Experience mentoring engineers and setting effective testing, code review, and release practices
Sound security judgment when working with sensitive personal or financial data
English at C1 or higher, clear communication with engineers and non-technical stakeholders, and experience leading technical discussions with external service providers
Technical focus: backend and AI in Python, frontend in React and Vue with REST APIs, applied AI layer powered by Claude
Nice to have: experience leading a small startup engineering team across frontend, backend, and AI/ML
Nice to have: travel, loyalty, employee benefits, payments, or account aggregation experience with providers such as MX, Stripe, or Method
Nice to have: SOC 2 preparation, enterprise security reviews, or technical due diligence during fundraising
Nice to have: optimization, graph search, constraint solving, or rules engines experience
Nice to have: experience leading distributed teams, including contractors and interns

Conditions

Full-time remote engagement with availability from 08:00 to at least 13:00 US Eastern time, with some meetings requiring overlap until 14:00-15:00 Eastern
Close collaboration with the founders, CTO, Chief Product Officer, and engineering teams, including calls with external integration partners during US business hours
The role focuses on technical guidance, mentoring, architecture, and integration planning, with the expected level of direct coding and out-of-hours support agreed before the engagement
Start date, compensation, and initial engagement duration are to be agreed, with interest in continuity and longer-term collaboration
Remote work options
MacBook Pro work equipment
Individual English lessons
Coverage of sports and wellness expenses
Social health benefits
Gifts for holidays and special events
Professional training, conference participation, internal meetups, and seminars

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