Smirnov Labs

## About Us

Smirnov Labs is a fast-growing engineering company founded by an ex-Googler. We help product teams launch and scale quickly by leveraging modern technology and AI-assisted development.

Our projects are diverse — we partner with clients at the earliest stages and own the technical delivery end-to-end.

We're a small, senior-heavy team where every engineer has real impact. No bureaucracy, no hand-holding — just sharp people shipping fast.

You'll work in our team, on codebases we own, making the technical calls yourself. Your time splits between client products we build end-to-end and our own internal products.

## The Stack

- Backend — TypeScript is our centre of gravity, with Go on the projects that call for it. We choose the framework per engagement rather than forcing a house standard.

- Data — Postgres almost everywhere. Cloud depends on the client (AWS, GCP).

- Frontend — React + TypeScript.

- Infra — Docker and your own deploys. We have no dedicated DevOps team.

- AI — LLM application work is a regular part of our client projects: retrieval pipelines, embeddings, agentic workflows.

## What You'll Do

- Own backend services end-to-end — architecture, implementation, deployment, and what happens when they break.

- Write mostly TypeScript, and Go where the project calls for it. Different engagements make different choices; you'll be comfortable in both.

- Design data models, schemas, and APIs on Postgres — and know when the database should be doing the work.

- Build the React/TypeScript frontend for the features you ship. You take a feature all the way through the UI, not just to the API boundary.

- Ship your own work to production: Docker, CI/CD, environments. There's no DevOps team to hand it to.

- Build LLM-backed features on real client products — retrieval, embeddings, agentic workflows, Claude and similar APIs.

- Make the technical decisions. Pick the framework, shape the architecture, choose the tradeoffs, and defend them in review.

- Move between projects — client products and our own — across different domains and constraints.

- Talk directly to clients and to the founder. No layers in between.

- Use AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as part of your daily workflow.

## What We're Looking For

- 6+ years building and running production backend systems

- Deep TypeScript on the server, not just in components — you know where the type system earns its keep

- Production Go experience, or enough depth to get there quickly — some of our projects are Go and you'll be expected to work in them

- Strong Postgres: schema design, query performance, migrations

- Solid React and TypeScript on the frontend — enough to build and ship a complete feature without a frontend engineer alongside you

- API design experience (REST, gRPC, or GraphQL) and an opinion on when to reach for which

- Comfortable owning your own deployments — Docker, CI/CD, cloud environments (AWS or GCP)

- A track record of shipping without a detailed spec and without process handed to you

- Comfort working in the US timezone (overlapping working hours required)

- Upper-Intermediate or higher English

- Ability to own and drive features independently with minimal supervision

Nice to have

- Hands-on experience with vector search and embeddings — pgvector, Qdrant, Pinecone, whatever you've used. Side projects and weekend experiments count; commercial experience is not required here.

- Experience building on LLM APIs — RAG, tool use, agents, evals.

- Depth in more than one backend language or ecosystem.

- Early-stage or agency background: greenfield work, shifting requirements, direct client contact.

## What We Offer

- Competitive salary above market average

- Fully remote work

- Flat structure — you talk directly to the founder and to clients, no middle management

- Real technical ownership: you make the architecture decisions on the systems you build

- Diverse and technically challenging projects

- Modern AI-powered development workflow

- Small team culture — your voice matters, your code ships

- Paid vacation and sick leave

- Flexible schedule within the US timezone overlap

- Professional and career growth through real ownership, not courses and certificates

## How to Apply

Send your CV with a brief note about a backend system you're most proud of — what it had to handle, and what you'd build differently now.

## About Us

Smirnov Labs is a fast-growing engineering company founded by an ex-Googler. We help product teams launch and scale quickly by leveraging modern technology and AI-assisted development.

Our projects are diverse — we partner with clients at the earliest stages and own the technical delivery end-to-end.

We're a small, senior-heavy team where every person has real impact. No bureaucracy, no hand-holding — just sharp people shipping fast.

You'll be the client's main point of contact — running the relationship and keeping delivery moving across our internal team and our partner agency. Most of the job sits between the client and the engineers.

## What You'll Do

Client relationships

- Be the face of Smirnov Labs: run recurring client calls, handle day-to-day questions, and keep clients confident that their project is in good hands.

- Manage scope, expectations, and timelines — including the harder conversations when something slips.

- Send status updates clear enough that a client never has to ask where things stand.

- Notice when an engagement could grow, and act on it.

Delivery

- Turn client requests into scoped, sequenced work with real milestones.

- Coordinate delivery across our internal team and our partner agency, and keep both pointed at the right priorities.

- Track timelines, budgets, and blockers, and step in early when something is off track.

- Own the delivery cadence — standups, sprints, whatever fits the engagement — and keep tickets and docs current.

Proposals and scoping — once you've found your feet

- Start out sitting in on scoping calls and building effort and cost estimates with engineering.

- As you learn how we scope and price, take over writing the proposals and statements of work yourself.

- Move leads through to signed work.

Technical translation

- Follow an architecture discussion closely enough to know what's being decided, and explain what it means for the client's timeline and budget.

- Keep up when the conversation turns to AI agents, APIs, or infrastructure — enough to ask the right questions and pull in the right engineer.

- Use AI-assisted tools (Claude, Claude Code) in your daily workflow — drafting proposals, turning a messy discovery call into a clean scope.

## What We're Looking For

- Near-native, accent-neutral spoken English (C1–C2). You're on camera with US clients every week and you are the company to them. Clear, confident, effortless English is the hard requirement for this role.

- Strong written English. You can turn a messy discovery call into a clean proposal a client signs.

- 4+ years managing client-facing software or consulting delivery, ideally at an agency, consultancy, or services shop.

- A track record running projects across more than one team, including outside vendors or partner agencies.

- Enough technical fluency to follow an architecture discussion, sanity-check an estimate, and translate between engineers and business stakeholders. Bonus if you've worked near AI/ML or agentic products.

- Comfort with ambiguity and a small-company pace — you can own an engagement end to end without much process handed to you.

- Several hours of daily overlap with US business hours — client calls happen on their clock.

- Familiarity with Linear, Jira, or similar.

Nice to have

- An engineering or technical role earlier in your career.

- Experience writing SOWs and pricing consulting work.

- Experience with staff augmentation engagements alongside project delivery.

- A working sense of how AI agents, APIs, and infrastructure fit together.

## What We Offer

- Competitive salary

- Fully remote work

- Flat structure — you talk directly to the founder and to the engineers, no middle management

- Real ownership: your own book of clients, not a slice of someone else's

- Diverse and technically challenging projects

- Modern AI-powered workflow

- Small team culture — your voice matters

- Paid vacation and sick leave

- Flexible schedule within the US timezone overlap

- Professional and career growth through real ownership, not courses and certificates

## How to Apply

Send your CV with a brief note about a client engagement you're most proud of — what was at stake, what nearly went wrong, and how you handled it.