Founding Full-Stack Engineer

About AndThen

We're on a quest to turn every pair of headphones into a portal for living, breathing stories.

We are building the next generation of interactive audio experiences. Key product concepts include real-time generative voice conversation, branching narratives with game design, and agentic AI-powered characters — all delivered through a frictionless listening experience.

We are a seed-stage startup with a prototype that generated investment from a leading venture fund in AI and entertainment.

The Role

We're looking for a seasoned full-stack engineer who can own features end-to-end: Designing APIs in the morning, dialing in iOS optimizations after lunch, and brainstorming narrative design software before logging off. You'll be the senior engineering hire, so your decisions will shape both the product and the culture. In addition, we are offering a competitive salary with meaningful equity.

What You'll Do

• Own core web (React/Next.js) and mobile clients (Swift/React Native), built upon a modern stack (PostgreSQL/Supabase, Vercel/AWS).
• Ship low-latency audio pipelines and real-time state management for branching story logic.
• Integrate and fine-tune voice/AI agents with Pipecat, OpenAI, Whisper, and similar frameworks for lifelike NPC dialogue, voice synthesis, and dynamic narration.
• Prototype dynamic gameplay functions from within real-time LLM interactions.
• Stand up secure login / registration flows (magic links, OAuth, social sign-in) and user management.
• Own payments: hook up Stripe + Apple/Google in-app purchases, subscriptions, and rev-share payouts for creator marketplace.
• Build an advanced game-creation toolkit and the marketplace submission pipeline so users can publish titles and get paid.
• Collaborate with designers, writers, and sound engineers to ship delightful, accessible user experiences.
• Establish engineering best practices — testing, observability, CI/CD, code review norms — as we scale from MVP to millions of users.
• Mentor junior engineers, grow the team, and define our technical roadmap.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years professional experience across the stack, with demonstrable impact on production systems.
• Fluency in JavaScript/TypeScript plus at least one backend language (Python, Go, or similar).
• Deep knowledge of modern frontend frameworks (React, Next.js, Remix, or similar) and component-level performance tuning.
• Cloud infrastructure chops (AWS, GCP, or Vercel), including serverless architecture and containerization.
• Proven experience designing REST/GraphQL APIs and shipping secure, scalable databases (PostgreSQL or equivalent).

Bonus Points

• Hands-on work with audio streaming, WebRTC, or real-time media protocols.
• Familiarity with speech-to-text / text-to-speech, voice agents, or conversational AI frameworks.
• Experience with coding environments that integrate newest LLMs (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Llama).
• Experience shipping production iOS apps in the App Store (TestFlight, app-review nuances).
• Enthusiasm for narrative design, games, or audio storytelling.

Working at AndThen

• Remote-first team with quarterly on-site creative sprints (NYC / LA).
• Early say in key tech decisions, culture, and development of our future roadmap.

How to Apply

Email hello@andthen.chat with:

• A brief note on why AndThen excites you.
• CV or LinkedIn.
• Links to something you've built that you're proud of — code, demo, live site, or audio project.