$150k-$200k | 3-7% | In-Person Flexible | New York City | May 2025

We're looking for a product and engineering lead to take the reins at a fast-moving, mission-driven startup. You’ll be joining at a critical inflection point: we have paying users, real traction with enterprise clients, and ambitious plans for scale. If you're excited about building products that change students’ lives and having significant ownership in a platform shaping the future, this is your moment.

About ESAI

ESAI is building a mission-critical storytelling platform for Gen Z — helping craft compelling essays, discover the right colleges, explore scholarships and majors, and ultimately learn more about themselves starting with the the college admissions process. More about us:

• We help real people. We estimate ESAI has already saved families over $150M in advising costs. We have some pretty enthusiastic fans, but don’t just take it from us:

• We’ve raised from top-tier VCs including Betaworks and Precursor Ventures, and were recently featured on Shark Tank, with Mark Cuban himself coming on board as an investor and advisor.
• Our quick growth is largely due to organic TikTok virality - we’ve reached over 37 million students on the platform in one year by resonating with a very real pain point.
• Featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, Fox Business, TechCrunch, The Pitch and Shark Tank

About the Role

This is is a leadership role for someone who is willing to get their hands dirty. You’ll be expected to own the full product lifecycle — from infrastructure to front-end UI, from user feedback to product iteration. You’ll work closely with our founder and customers (students, parents, and enterprise clients) to shape the direction of the platform.

Think of it as Head of Engineering meets Head of Product, all in one. You'll ship fast, learn from users, and iterate even faster.

What You'll Do

• Make product decisions based on user feedback, Mixpanel analytics, and direct conversations with students and clients
• Build and lead ESAI product and engineering team over time - starting with contractor management and Founding Engineer Hire
• Own the architecture and development of our platform (NextJS frontend, Django backend)
• Manage and evolve our AWS infrastructure (EC2, RDS, S3, Secrets Manager)
• Maintain and optimize our Dockerized deployments and GitHub CI/CD pipelines
• Be an advocate for simplicity, scalability, and best practices in both code and process