Product Engineer

At Lapel, we believe the most hospitable companies win. We're building the data, infrastructure, and tools that help customer-facing teams understand every customer and act on that insight at scale throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

Most internet businesses want to treat customers well, but their tools work against them. We’re building the layer that makes every interaction feel personal again: unifying context, coordinating action, and closing the gap between intent and experience.

It’s a technically ambitious challenge spanning data infrastructure, AI, and systems design—with a deeply human outcome: helping software companies serve people better. We call it hospitality at scale.

We’re well-funded, backed by top-tier investors, and already working with incredible companies, from fast-growing startups to large enterprises. We’ll share more details when we talk.

What You’ll Do

• Build, ship, and iterate on product features across the full stack

• Work closely with founders, designers, and customers to define and deliver product experiences

• Own features end-to-end, from ideation and implementation to deployment and iteration

• Design and implement APIs, services, and integrations

• Translate product requirements into scalable, maintainable technical solutions

• Develop both frontend interfaces and backend services as needed

• Continuously improve product quality, performance, and usability

• Contribute to product decisions, prioritization, and trade-offs

• Write clean, maintainable code and improve engineering standards

Our Stack

Lapel is built end-to-end in TypeScript in a single monorepo.

• React, Vite, and Tailwind on the frontend;

• Node.js and Postgres on the backend;

• Temporal and Pulsar to power orchestration.

We ship quickly, and care about creating a developer experience where anyone can prototype, experiment, and get ideas into production fast.

You’ll Thrive in This Role If You

• Have 3+ years of experience building and shipping products

• Are comfortable working with APIs, databases, and system design

• Have strong product instincts and care about user experience

• Enjoy owning problems end-to-end, not just implementing tasks

• Are comfortable navigating ambiguity and working in early-stage environments

• Collaborate well with designers and product teams

• Move fast while maintaining a high bar for quality

This role is fully in-person at our San Francisco HQ. We work together in-office most days of the week.

The Process

We aim to hire with intention, respect your time, and offer feedback along the way.

1. Initial conversation (20 minutes) We’ll explore your motivations, share what we’re building, and answer your questions.

2. In-depth interview (45 minutes) We’ll go deeper into your craft and experience. No live coding. No prep work necessary.

3. Take-home project (2–4 hours) You’ll complete a short, well-scoped exercise that mirrors the kind of work you’d do here.

4. On-site visit (1–2 days) Join us in the office to review your take-home, grab lunch, and work on something real.

Compensation and Benefits

We believe great people build great companies—and we invest accordingly.

• Competitive salary + meaningful early-stage equity

• Full benefits: including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k)

• Generous time off: including many company holidays and coordinated team-wide breaks throughout the year to focus and recharge

• Office perks: lunch and dinner provided daily, health & wellness benefits

• Team culture: regular off-sites, tight feedback loops, and a bias toward action

Other notices

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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