Tech Lead (AI Focused)

The Role

We focus on building seven high-potential projects at a time. On each of our projects, we have a dedicated team that is led by a Tech Lead, a Product Manager and a Design Lead. Our teams are close-knit, high performing, and range from 5-10 people.

We are searching for a Tech Lead to be the engineering leader of one of our teams and own the technical buildout of the product. You’ll be responsible for managing an engineering team (usually a team of 2-5 engineers), owning the software architecture and infrastructure, engaging with the business to understand the product needs and overseeing the technical direction and delivery. 

Although this role requires a combination of strong technical and leadership capabilities, you will have support and guidance from our Head of Engineering. You will also be part of our Engineering Leads Council where we consult on large technical challenges and tech-related decisions that shape the products we build. 

Some of our current projects are focused on the areas of LLM prompting, transformers, embeddings, and vector databases. If you already have experience working on AI-related initiatives or would like to gain commercial experience with AI-focused products, this could be the role for you!

Responsibilities

Leadership

• Work closely with the Product Manager and Design Lead to lead the project and help the company achieve its goals through the product we are building
• Manage the engineering team on the product and oversee the quality of their output
• Create and maintain a fun and challenging environment where your engineers are motivated, engaged, growing, and working together in a collaborative way

‍Development

• Manage the technical delivery of projects, ensuring they are completed on time and within scope
• Select and update technologies that are most appropriate for the product’s needs, ensuring they align with our standards
• Take ownership of the technical aspects of the project, ensuring successful delivery
• Assist the Product Manager in discovery refinement, ensuring that epics and user stories in the roadmap are refined, estimated, and prioritized in line with business goals
• Own the setup and maintenance of scalable hosting infrastructure, configure environments and architect CI/CD pipelines
• Be a hands-on contributor to the project, developing features together with the team
• Conduct regular code reviews to maintain code quality 
• Oversee the overall software architecture
• Proactively seek ways to improve the development process and team efficiency

Skills & Requirements

• 2+ years in a lead or senior role, where you have been mentoring more junior engineers
• 5+ years of experience in engineering
• 3+ years of building web applications using Node.js or React
• Experience in architecting software (building from scratch is a plus)
• Experience in setting up and maintaining hosting infrastructure
• Strong business acumen (experience in early-stage startups is a plus)
• Ability to make product decisions based on value for the startup and its users
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills for complex technical challenges
• Willingness to learn new technologies
• Comfortable communicating in English (upper-intermediate level is sufficient). OAK’S LAB has often been the first English-speaking position for many of our team, so we offer free English lessons to continue to support your growth.

Tech Stack

• TypeScript
• Node.js
• React + Next.js
• React Native
• GraphQL, tRPC
• Material UI
• Playwright 
• Google Cloud Platform
• HuggingFace, OpenAI API, RAG
  

Note: You don’t need experience with all the above technologies as we are happy to upskill in certain areas.

For a detailed overview of the technologies we use, please visit the LINK

Our Projects

We’ve built over 40 successful products. Here are a few from our portfolio:

• Nasdaq Private Market
• PlexTrac
• Vette
• Plotify

Benefits

• Flexible working hours
• Hybrid working environment
• 25 vacation days + 1 birthday day off + 1 additional day for every year working with OAK’S LAB (capped at 30 days)
• Top-of-the-line MacBook and hardware budget
• Budget to spend on your growth (books, courses, conferences)
• Free English lessons
• Opportunity for a bonus gained from investments in our startup partners
• Team bonding, happy hours, online games, annual offsite trips
• Outside of work activity clubs (yoga, traveling, football, tennis, etc.)
• Snacks and drinks in the office, weekly pizza, monthly breakfast
• Landmark office right on Old Town Square (dog-friendly)