Engineering Manager / Tech Lead — Distro

Engineering Manager / Tech Lead — Distro Location: RemoteReports to: CEOTeam: 2–3 engineers About the role Distro is an AI-powered recruiting platform. We connect to our customers' existing ATS, sync their jobs and candidates, and run an automated multi-stage pipeline that parses, scores, and interviews applicants using LLMs. AI isn't a feature bolted onto the product — it's the flow the product runs on. We're looking for someone to lead that engineering effort: own the architecture, own the AWS environment it runs on, and grow a small team. This is a hands-on, full-stack role. You'll be writing code across the stack, not just reviewing it. What you'll own The AI processing pipeline. A chained, asynchronous, multi-stage system built on queued jobs. Every stage depends on the last, and every stage involves a non-deterministic model call that can fail or return something subtly wrong. Keeping it correct, observable, and cost-efficient is the core technical challenge of the job. Full-stack feature work. Laravel on the backend, React on the front. You'll move between both — this isn't a backend role with occasional UI tickets. AWS infrastructure end to end. ECS, Aurora, S3 and supporting services. You're the person accountable for it, including keeping the bill under control. SOC 2 Type 2 compliance. We're certified and intend to stay that way. Expect evidence collection, control remediation, access reviews, and backup restoration testing as part of the normal rhythm. A small team. Two engineers today. Code review, technical direction, unblocking, and growth conversations are yours. Product input. Our engineers argue about what we build, not just how. If you want a seat at that table, it's here. Stack Backend: PHP / Laravel, Laravel Horizon, Redis, Aurora (MySQL)Frontend: JavaScript / TypeScript, ReactInfrastructure: AWS — ECS, Aurora/RDS, S3, CloudWatch, CloudFormation; DockerAI: OpenAI API — completions, structured outputs, vector stores, prompt caching, evaluationTooling: GitHub Actions, Jira, Claude Code What we're looking for Required 5+ years building and running production systems as a full-stack engineer — genuinely comfortable in both Laravel and React, not strong in one and passable in the other Strong PHP/Laravel, or strong equivalent experience in another modern backend framework with a real willingness to work in Laravel Hands-on AWS ownership — ECS, Aurora/RDS, and the operational side: monitoring, incident response, and cost optimization. Not "I've used AWS," but "I've been the person who gets called when it breaks and the person who noticed the bill was too high." Experience with asynchronous job processing: queues, workers, retries, idempotency, dead-letter handling Production experience with the OpenAI API — completions, structured outputs, vector stores — including handling non-deterministic output and controlling token cost at scale Fluent with AI-assisted development. We use Claude Code daily, and we expect you to work the same way: not just chat prompts, but planning, review, and repo-level context. You should be able to raise the team's ceiling here, not just keep up. Experience leading or mentoring engineers, formally or informally Professional working English Nice to have SOC 2 or similar compliance experience ATS, HR tech, or recruiting domain knowledge Infrastructure as code (CloudFormation, Terraform, CDK) Experience building or integrating MCP servers or agentic workflows Who does well here Owns outcomes, not tickets. The most valuable work anyone has done in this role wasn't assigned to them. If you need a fully specified backlog to be effective, this isn't the right fit. Thinks about the product, not just the implementation. Understands why we're building something and pushes back when the "why" doesn't hold up. Explains trade-offs clearly. Can say why one approach was chosen over another and what the long-term cost of that choice is. Comfortable being the most senior person on a problem. The team is