Lead Product Engineer

Position: Lead Product Engineer
Department: Platform / Innovation
Contract Type: Full-time contractor
Location: Remote (Latin America)
Reports To: VP of Operations

Job Description

Lupa is hiring a senior product engineer to own the Lupa platform: the proprietary system that runs our recruiting operations end to end. The platform already exists and is in active use. Your job is to take it from working to excellent.

You will inherit modules built by our founding engineering team, take full ownership of them in production, and drive them forward: prioritizing what to build next, shipping improvements weekly, and making the platform the single place where the entire team operates. You will also mentor engineers on the team and help shape how Lupa builds product.

This is a role for someone who thinks like a product owner and ships like an engineer, with AI tools as their primary leverage. You will make the calls on what to build, build it yourself, and own the outcomes.

The Core Problems This Role Will Solve

1) Own the platform in production

1. Take end-to-end ownership of the platform's live modules: architecture, reliability, iteration, and quality.

2. Receive new modules from our founding engineering team as they reach production readiness, then stabilize, improve, and scale them.

2) Drive the product roadmap

1. Gather requests from recruiters, operations, and leadership. Prioritize ruthlessly, plan your weeks, and communicate what ships and why.

2. Say no to the wrong things. Roadmap authority sits with you; the VP of Operations reviews.

3) Move all operations onto the platform

1. Make the platform good enough that the team stops working around it. Day-to-day recruiting operations and admin work should happen in one place: ours.

2. Replace manual workarounds and legacy tools with product.

4) Raise the engineering bar

1. Mentor and coach engineers on the team, helping them grow in craft, judgment, and product thinking.

2. Set standards for how Lupa ships: fast, AI-native, and proud of the result.

What We're Looking For

1. Product judgment. 5+ years building and owning products end to end, not closing tickets. You make calls on what to build and what not to build, you read users and context, and you ship things you would be proud to use yourself.

2. Outcome ownership. If a feature didn't work, you iterate without being asked. You measure impact, not output.

3. AI-native by default. You use AI as the core of your development workflow, not as an accessory. You have real expertise with Claude, Claude Code, and similar tools, and you think in prompts, scaffolds, and agentic workflows to move faster than a traditional team.

4. Technical depth. Fluent in React and TypeScript, with strong experience on Supabase (or comparable PostgreSQL-based backends): schema design, query performance, and complex business logic. Comfortable prototyping with tools like Lovable.

5. Design sensibility. You care how things look and feel. You don't ship confusing interfaces expecting design to fix it later, because on this team, you are the design partner.

6. Bias to ship. Prototype, launch, measure, adjust. Less planning, more iteration.

7. Mentorship instinct. You make the engineers around you better, through code review, pairing, and honest coaching.

8. Nice to have: experience with recruiting, applicant tracking systems, or other workflow-heavy operational products.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Ownership

1. Own the recruiting modules of the Lupa platform in production: features, performance, reliability, and data quality.

2. Implement and maintain features across the full stack, from interface to database.

3. Own systems end to end: architecture, implementation, deployment, and iteration.

Product & Roadmap

1. Own the roadmap for everything in production: review team requests, prioritize, scope, and plan delivery.

2. Often own the full user experience of a feature, not just its implementation.

3. Define success metrics for what you ship and iterate based on real usage.

AI-Native Execution

1. Use AI as your primary leverage: explore architectures, scaffold prototypes, generate interface options, write tests, and review your own work before a human does.

2. Push the team's AI workflows forward and share what you learn.

Team & Craft

1. Mentor and coach engineers on the team as they grow.

2. Help shape Lupa's technical direction, engineering culture, and product standards.

Clear Deliverables & Expectations

Within 30 Days

1. Complete a full diagnostic of the platform's recruiting modules: architecture, gaps, and adoption blockers.

2. Present a prioritized 90-day roadmap to the VP of Operations.

Within 90 Days

1. Fully own the recruiting modules in production, with the founding engineering team focused on new builds.

2. Ship the improvements that let the team run day-to-day recruiting operations and admin work entirely on the platform.

3. Establish a working roadmap rhythm: request intake, prioritization, weekly shipping cadence, and clear communication of what's next.

Key Performance Indicators

1. Platform adoption: the share of daily operations running on the platform instead of manual tools.

2. Shipping velocity: consistent weekly delivery of improvements that users notice.

3. Reliability: fewer bugs, faster fixes, and trust from the team that the platform just works.

4. Roadmap health: requests triaged quickly, priorities clear, and stakeholders informed.

5. Team growth: measurable development of the engineers you mentor.

Our Tech Stack

1. Frontend: React, TypeScript

2. Backend: Supabase (PostgreSQL)

3. Prototyping: Lovable

4. AI: Claude, Claude Code, and whatever comes next

5. Tooling: Linear, Slack

Who We Are

Lupa is a headhunter and consultancy connecting global companies with top-tier talent in Latin America, particularly in tech, marketing, and finance. We blend high-tech with a human touch, ensuring the perfect match between a company's needs and a candidate's unique offerings.

Why Join Us?

1. Real ownership: you will run the product that runs the company.

2. AI-first environment: full AI tooling stack covered, and a team that already works this way.

3. Direct impact: what you ship on Monday changes how the team works on Tuesday.

4. Startup environment: fast feedback loops, autonomy, and visible results.

5. Competitive compensation.

Lupa Recruiter Operations, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.