Job Details

Early-stage startup | Hybrid in Bryn Mawr, PA | Potential path to full-time

About Arborvitae

Arborvitae is building a modern platform for managing the complexity of homeownership, renovation, and construction. We bring together homeowners, architects, and contractors in one system — combining project management, budgeting, documents, and AI-powered search.

We've built the foundation with a small engineering team and are beginning to onboard pilot users. We're now looking for a strong product-minded engineer to help us improve the product, move faster, and shape the next stage of the company.

The Role

We're looking for a product engineer who can operate at the intersection of software engineering, product thinking, and fast execution.

In our team, engineers are expected to own a part of the product end-to-end: understanding user needs, joining customer conversations, turning feedback into clear requirements, shipping quickly, and iterating based on real usage.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a small, fast-moving startup environment and enjoys combining technical execution with product judgment. You should be comfortable working through ambiguity, moving quickly, and using modern AI tools to accelerate development and iteration.

You'll work closely with the CEO and engineering lead, but with meaningful autonomy over your area of the product.

What You'll Do

• Own a meaningful area of the product end-to-end
• Participate in customer conversations and stay close to real user workflows
• Turn feedback, rough ideas, and workflow pain points into clear product requirements
• Build and iterate quickly across frontend, backend, APIs, and data models as needed
• Identify edge cases, broken flows, and opportunities to improve the product
• Help shape product direction through direct user learning and day-to-day decisions
• Raise the bar for speed, quality, and execution across the team
• Use modern AI tools to accelerate implementation, planning, and iteration

Areas of Focus

Depending on your strengths and the needs of the business, this role may focus on areas such as:

• Home professional workflows, including tasks, site visits, scheduling, and invoicing
• Homeowner workflows related to budgets, documents, and house financials
• Collaboration between homeowners, architects, and contractors
• Product quality, testing, and overall workflow polish

What We're Looking For

• Experience building and shipping production web applications
• Strong ability to operate at the intersection of product and engineering
• Ability to take customer feedback and ambiguous ideas and turn them into practical solutions
• Fast, pragmatic execution style with comfort iterating quickly
• Strong product judgment and attention to workflow details
• Comfortable working independently in a small startup team
• Strong communication skills and willingness to collaborate closely with founders and users
• Comfort using AI tools as part of a modern product development workflow

Especially Relevant, But Not Required

We'd be especially excited about candidates with experience or familiarity in areas such as:

• Home renovation, construction, architecture, or home services
• Real estate, property management, or contractor workflows
• Home finance, budgeting, invoicing, or mortgage-related workflows
• Document-heavy or workflow-heavy software
• Early-stage startups or small product teams

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind
• Backend: PostgreSQL, Supabase, APIs, serverless functions
• AI: OpenAI APIs, vector search
• Infrastructure: Vercel, AWS

You do not need experience with every part of the stack. We care most about strong judgment, product sense, speed, and the ability to contribute quickly in a small team.

Compensation & Structure

This is an initial contract role with compensation aligned to an early-stage startup budget, with potential to transition into a full-time role with equity.