Founding Product Engineer
AI Summary
Builds end-to-end product features and core systems that detect, diagnose, and help teams fix broken product experiences, shaping the standards for a new category of developer-facing observability tooling.
About this role
About Interfere
Interfere is building the self-healing layer of the internet: software that detects broken product experiences, understands what caused them, and helps teams fix them before users notice. Modern teams have logs, dashboards, traces, and session replay. They still find out about too many problems from their users. We exist to close that gap for engineers, PMs, designers, and founders who care how their product actually works in the real world. The product surface is large. The category is still being defined. The people who join now will shape the standards and the operating system of the company. We've raised $5.1M from Y Combinator, Vercel Ventures, Hummingbird, Designer Fund, and others. We're in person in New York City.
The Role
You will own end-to-end features, from data model to interface, that define how the best teams understand and fix their products. You'll architect core systems, design the surfaces engineers actually use, and decide what "excellent" means for a category that doesn't exist yet.
What you'll build and own
Detection and diagnosis systems that reason about codebases and runtime behavior at scale
Developer-facing interfaces that make complex system failures legible in seconds
Pipelines that ingest, structure, and correlate billions of product events
Agentic workflows that triage issues and propose or ship fixes safely
APIs and integrations that meet developers inside the tools they already use
The internal standards (for code, design, and judgment) that the next ten engineers will inherit
What we're looking for
You've shipped production software that real users depend on, end to end, across the stack.
You move comfortably between frontend behavior, backend systems, and the seams between them.
You can take an ambiguous product or infrastructure problem, define the next useful step, and ship without waiting for a fully specified plan.
You can explain complex system behavior clearly enough that engineers, designers, and PMs can make the right decision quickly.
You are willing to stay with hard problems long enough to understand them deeply, not just route around them.
Nice to have
You are fluent in TypeScript and modern web tooling (Next.js, React, Node).
Worked on developer tools, observability, incident response, or session replay
Built or operated systems handling high-throughput event data
Shipped agentic or LLM-powered features into production
Distributed systems depth, or strong eye for product and UI craft (either is a strong asset; both is rare and valuable)
Strong signals
A product, tool, or system you built that other engineers chose to use
Open-source work, technical writing, or research with real depth
Took on more scope than your title suggested at a previous company
Started something from zero: a company, a team, a product line
Picked up an unfamiliar domain quickly and shipped something good in it
A portfolio piece (code, product, writing) where the taste is obvious in the first 30 seconds
How We Work
We're in-person in New York City. We move quickly, write clearly, and expect high ownership. We care about the difference between something that works and something that is excellent. We expect you to push back when you disagree, and to do the work to be right when you do.
Compensation and logistics
Founding-team equity and competitive cash compensation (specific ranges shared in first conversation)
Health, dental, and vision
Visa sponsorship for exceptional international candidates
We'll help you move to New York
Interview process
Intro conversation with a founder
Technical deep-dive on past work
Paid project or pairing session on a real Interfere problem
Onsite with the team in New York
References and offer — we move fast and tell you where you stand
How to apply
Send us your resume or LinkedIn, plus one piece of work we should look at: a repo, a live product, a technical essay, a side project, a postmortem. We want to see how you think and build. A short note on why Interfere helps, but the work matters more.
Skills
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