Founding Engineer (Full-Stack)

About WashBoard

WashBoard is a two-sided marketplace for commercial bus and coach fleet washing — an industry that runs almost entirely on phone calls today, with essentially zero software. The MVP is largely built, early demos with both fleets and wash providers have landed exceptionally well, and we launch into revenue this year. We're hiring a founding engineer to own the entire platform and build it into the operating system for this market.

Being upfront from line one: this starts at 25–50% of your time and converts to full-time as revenue scales. Comp is equity-weighted — 3–8% ownership — plus cash. Details below.

Why this is real

Most early marketplaces die trying to solve distribution. Ours is solved. My co-founder Jack has spent two decades in this industry; his previous company built the leading machine for washing buses, he has 1,500+ customers from that business, and he personally knows most of the operators and providers in the market. When we demo, people take the call because they know him. I run product. You would own everything technical.

What exists today

A production-grade MVP, TypeScript end-to-end:

• React web app (Vite, TanStack Query, Tailwind + shadcn) — mobile-first, built for drivers using it from a coach cab
• Node/Express API with an OpenAPI contract and generated typed clients
• Prisma + PostgreSQL; session auth; a booking state machine with full audit history; SERIALIZABLE booking holds to prevent double-booking
• Map-driven search and discovery with route-aware detour-time logic (Leaflet + OSRM), two-sided operations for fleets and providers, cross-border USD/CAD pricing

What you'll build

Near-term, everything between here and revenue: launch hardening, marketplace payments (Stripe Connect — payouts, refunds, disputes, KYC), security hardening, performance, and provider onboarding tooling.

The bigger arc is why this role is interesting. We're going to move the industry's workflows, which currently happen via phone calls, into an AI-led operations layer: intelligent scheduling, pricing intelligence, voice agent automation for the phone-first side of the market, and much more. You'd architect that from the ground floor.

First 90 days: take the MVP through private launch — payments live, security hardened, the first paying fleets and providers transacting, and instrumentation in place to see what's working. The platform will launch publicly within 120–180 days.

Who you are

• You've shipped web or mobile products to at least low-thousands of real users — and you can send links/portfolio
• You've been the sole or lead engineer on something that mattered: production quality, testing, security, and uptime were on you
• You use AI heavily in your workflow (Claude Code, Cursor, or similar) and ship at a pace that surprises people — with the judgment to verify what you ship
• Payments or marketplace experience is a plus (Stripe Connect especially)
• You want ownership and a long arc, not a job
• Bonus: You have experience effectively incorporating AI-voice agent functionality into products

Structure and compensation — read this first

• Start at 25–50% of your time. Keep your current job or clients while we get to revenue.
• Ability to convert to a full-time, salaried position as revenue scales.
• Cash now: $30–40k/year to cover your overhead, stepping up to market rate at full-time conversion.
• Equity: 3–8% with standard 4-year vesting and a small portion that vests in 6 months as we drive to launch. That's the top of the founding-engineer range, deliberately — equity is the core of this package, and we want the person building the platform to own a real piece of it.

This structure is a filter, and we know it. It selects for exactly who we want: someone who sees what this market becomes once it runs on software, and wants to own a meaningful part of building that.

How we work

Fully remote, anywhere in the world, provided you're comfortable working with a team in a North American timezone. Mostly async with meetings as needed for collaborative decision making and client-facing calls. Core collaboration hours are 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM.

Process — fast

30-minute intro call → paid ~3-hour work sample in the real codebase (AI tools encouraged; we want to see how you actually work) → deep-dive on your shipped work plus references → decision within days.

When you apply, include links to things you've shipped.

Pay: $30,000.00 - $40,000.00 per year

Work Location: Remote