Lead Full Stack Engineer

Company Description

StackEx is a pre-seed marketplace for buying and selling precious metals with secure transactions, real-time pricing, and verification workflows. We’re building a trusted, modern platform for trading gold, silver, platinum, and palladium — where you will be solving complex problems around trust mechanics, real-time pricing data ingestion, and secure transactions.

We are currently building out our MVP and are looking for our first engineering hire to help shape the product, the architecture, and the culture from the ground up.

Role Description

We’re hiring our Engineer (Engineer #1) — a full-stack developer who is strong in Python and Flask, comfortable with front-end development using Bootstrap and JavaScript, and capable of integrating Stripe payments end-to-end.

This is a hands-on builder role. You will work directly with the founder and take ownership of major parts of the platform. You’ll help define our tech stack, build core marketplace features, and eventually guide future engineering hires.

We care more about capability and trajectory than years on a resume. While you don’t need 10 years of experience, you must be confident owning the full stack, making architectural trade-offs, and shipping production-ready code without hand-holding. We are looking for someone who is capable, hungry, resourceful, and excited about joining a pre-seed startup where your work matters immediately.

Responsibilities

Product & Architecture

• Help define the architecture of the marketplace and the engineering best practices.
• Work directly with the founder to turn product vision into shipped features.
• Provide technical input on UX, data flows, and product decisions.

Backend (Python/Falsk)

• Build and maintain core marketplace logic (listings, offers, purchases, messaging).
• Build RESTful routes/APIs and handle server-side rendering when needed.
• Implement Stripe workflows (Checkout, Connect onboarding, payouts, KYC).
• Ensure application security, logging, and reliability.

Frontend (Bootstrap/JavaScript)

• Build clean, responsive UI components with Bootstrap + JS.
• Integrate front-end components with backend APIs and Flask templates.
• Improve user experience across buyer, seller, admin, and QA flows.

General Startup work

• Own features end-to-end: requirements → design → implementation → deployment.
• Debug issues across the stack — environments, databases, APIs, deployments.
• Collaborate asynchronously, communicate clearly, and move fast.

Required Skills

• Strong knowledge of Python and Flask.
• Solid front-end experience with Bootstrap, JavaScript, HTML/CSS.
• Experience with or ability to quickly learn Stripe Connect flows.
• Comfortable with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite).
• Ability to move quickly, work independently, and ship production-quality code.
• Curiosity, ownership, and a startup builder mentality.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience building marketplaces, real-time pricing, or payment-driven apps.
• Familiarity with authentication/authorization (Flask-Login, JWT, OAuth).
• Background in fintech or trading platforms.
• Experience with AWS, DigitalOcean, or DevOps basics.
• Interest in precious metals or financial markets.

Compensation

• This role starts as a flexible, task-based contract (10-20 hrs/week) to ensure mutual fit.
• We intend to convert this to a full-time or equity-heavy Founding Engineer role upon raising our pre-seed round.

Future opportunities for equity and leadership as we scale.