Lead Growth Engineer

About the Role

This is a founding growth engineering role at a consumer-facing AI edtech company that recently launched its core product for kids and families and is now shifting its full energy toward growth discovery. The company needs one strong, multifaceted builder to establish what growth engineering looks like from the ground up, owning acquisition loops, rapid experimentation, and full-stack feature delivery across mobile, web, and backend without relying on paid channels.

The ideal candidate thinks well beyond the immediate engineering scope, bringing genuine curiosity about product, marketing, and design into every project. They have worked directly with clients or end users, can point to shipped consumer growth initiatives with real metric impact, and are comfortable being the person who sets the standard rather than following one. Ex-technical founders, forward deployed engineers, and growth engineers with a proven playbook and numbers to back it up are especially strong fits.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify and pursue high-impact, non-paid growth opportunities by designing and testing new user acquisition strategies from scratch
• Build viral and referral-based growth loops directly into the product so existing families organically expand the user base
• Rapidly prototype and ship consumer-facing features across mobile, web, and backend, then measure signals quickly and decide what to double down on
• Own growth features end to end, spanning onboarding, signup, referrals, notifications, lifecycle, and subscriptions, using AI coding tools to move at speed
• Collaborate closely with marketing, product, and GTM teammates, bringing a cross-functional perspective that connects engineering decisions to business outcomes
• Define the standards, voice, and playbook for growth engineering at the company, setting the foundation for how the function scales
• Instrument experiments with analytics tools, interpret results with rigor, and translate findings into clear recommendations for the broader team

Required Skills & Experience

• 1 to 12 years of experience as a growth engineer
• Demonstrated track record of shipping consumer growth initiatives with measurable impact across activation, retention, conversion, onboarding, referrals, or subscriptions
• Cross-functional background that spans at least two of the following: engineering and design, engineering and marketing, or engineering and product
• Experience running product experiments and working with analytics tools such as SQL, Mixpanel, Amplitude, or Segment
• Familiarity with AI developer tools such as Claude Code or Cursor
• Current US work authorization to start immediately (visa transfers including OPT and H1B considered)
• Ability to work hybrid on-site in San Francisco three days per week
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent required

Preferred Skills

• Experience at high-growth consumer or product-led tech companies in edtech, productivity, or language learning
• Background as a technical founder with demonstrated product traction, or experience as a founding engineer or YC alumni
• Mobile or full-stack development experience with Flutter, native iOS, native Android, React, or Python
• History of working directly with clients or end users in a customer-facing or forward deployed engineering capacity
• Demonstrated tendency to think beyond the immediate scope of a task toward broader product or business impact