Senior Software Engineer (Founding-Level)

About Bustem

Bustem helps e-commerce brands identify and take down copycats, counterfeiters, scammers, and unauthorized sellers stealing their revenue. We scan marketplaces, websites, ads, and domains to detect brand abuse and enforce against it. Bustem is bootstrapped, profitable, and growing fast: we hit $1M ARR within 60 days of launch and have since scaled to $5M+ ARR with zero outside investors. We've enforced takedowns on 100,000+ infringing listings, reclaimed over $1M in lost revenue, and now protect 120+ brands.

About the Role

We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer at the founding level, someone who has already built and owned something from scratch, not someone looking for their first 0-to-1 experience. You'll work at the core of Bustem's product: the real-time detection and enforcement systems that protect 120+ brands from counterfeiters and unauthorized sellers.

This is a peer-level technical hire, not a junior seat executing someone else's spec. You'll work closely with our CTO and have real autonomy to make architecture calls independently, and to raise the technical bar for the rest of the engineering team.

Who You Are

• You take full ownership once something's handed to you, it comes back done to the right standard, without anyone needing to check in or course-correct along the way
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with meaningful time at an early-stage or bootstrapped startup, ideally as a founding or near-founding engineer
• Have owned a system end-to-end at real scale and can point to actual users, requests, or data volume
• 1+ years operating with minimal senior oversight; you don't need a fully-scoped spec to start moving
• Comfortable making architecture tradeoffs independently, with real production-incident ownership
• Track record of shipping to real, paying customers, not just internal tools or side projects
• Strong product instincts, you think about UX and usability, not just backend correctness, and you're quick to notice when a feature isn't landing with users and ask why
• A clear, energetic communicator, you explain tradeoffs simply and bring real energy to the work, not just heads-down execution
• Proficient with Next.js, Postgres, and TypeScript, and comfortable integrating AI and LLMs into engineering workflows to reduce manual work

What You'll Do

Set the Technical Bar

• Bring senior judgment to architecture, code quality, and engineering process, you're here to raise the bar, not just add capacity
• Mentor other engineers formally or informally, and make infrastructure decisions independently

Build Real-Time Detection and Enforcement Systems

• Construct AI-powered scraping and detection systems that monitor marketplaces, social platforms, and the open web
• Identify infringers and unauthorized sellers as they emerge in real time, and build agents and workflows that automate takedown reporting at scale across 120+ brands

Own Systems and Infrastructure End-to-End

• Design and own scalable backend systems and APIs using Next.js, Postgres, and TypeScript
• Take real production-incident ownership and leverage LLMs to cut manual engineering work and increase team throughput

What Great Looks Like

• You can be handed something and never have to be checked up on, it comes back done right, to the standard it needed to be done to
• You've built a concrete 0-to-1 system here that didn't exist before, not an incremental feature
• What you ship is intuitive and easy to use, not just technically correct, you notice when something isn't landing with users and dig into why
• Other engineers are better because you're on the team, through direct mentorship or the standard your work sets
• You make sound architecture calls independently, treat incidents as your problem to solve, and make Bustem's systems faster, more reliable, and harder to game

Compensation & Benefits

• $200,000-$230,000+ base salary, plus 0.25-0.5% equity
• Daily lunch and dinner stipend, bi-weekly team events, and a direct close working relationship with the founder and CTO
• Ground-floor technical ownership at a profitable, bootstrapped company

This range may span several levels that could apply to the role. Final salary depends on factors such as geographic location and regional market rates, level, relevant experience, skills, expertise, and work format. We have a preference for NYC-based candidates who are able to work in-office.

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