Lead Full-Stack Engineer

ABOUT RETHINK FOOD

Rethink Food is a chef-led nonprofit building a more sustainable and equitable food system. We connect restaurants community-based organizations funders government partners healthcare organizations and our own Sustainable Community Kitchen to provide high-quality meals while creating jobs and supporting local businesses.

We are now building the technology layer that will connect this network make our operations radically more efficient and give every stakeholderfrom a kitchen manager to a donora clear view of what is happening and why it matters.

THE ROLE

Rethink Food is seeking a Lead Full-Stack Engineer to serve as the hands-on technical builder at the center of this work.

This is not an IT support position a narrow feature-development role or a job for someone who only manages other engineers. You will personally design build deploy and operate products that support Rethink Foods kitchens restaurant network community partners funders healthcare programs government contracts and internal teams.

Your job is to turn a complicated real-world food system into software that is remarkably simple to use. A frontline operator should be able to complete a task in seconds. A CEO or COO should be able to understand the business at a glance.

You will work directly with Rethink Foods leadership and teams across Operations Programs Finance Development and Communications. You will also help manage external technology partners and shape the future internal engineering team.

WHAT YOU WILL BUILD

The Rethink Command Center

Create a trusted real-time operating system that answers the organizations most important questions:

How many meals were planned produced delivered and verified
What did each meal actually costincluding food labor transportation overhead and reimbursements
Which contract funder donor or program paid for each meal
What is the contribution margin by program kitchen restaurant contract and market
Where are we over budget behind schedule under capacity or at risk
What should an operator or leader act on today

The Rethink Network Marketplace

Build the platform connecting community demand funding restaurants kitchens and delivery:

Map fulfilled and unfulfilled meal demand by community and geography.
Allow community-based organizations to request meals establish schedules and communicate preferences.
Match qualified restaurants and kitchens with funded opportunities.
Support restaurant applications partner selection recurring production delivery confirmation and feedback.
Give donors and funders clear timely reporting on what their support made possible.
Make it possible to launch the smallest useful version quickly learn from real users and expand responsibly.

Kitchen and Field Operations Tools

Develop simple mobile-friendly products for production planning inventory meal counts food safety quality assurance delivery incident tracking and partner communication.

An AI-Enabled Operating Layer

Build practical AI workflows that reduce administrative work rather than create more of it. This may include:

Turning emails forms spreadsheets and documents into structured workflows.
Automating recurring operational financial donor and board reporting.
Identifying anomalies missing information delivery risks and budget variances.
Helping teams search contracts operating procedures partner records and program history.
Creating human-reviewed agents that assist with intake follow-up reconciliation and communication.

A Reliable Data Foundation

Connect and rationalize data across systems such as BigQuery HubSpot financial tools Google Workspace Slack existing portals partner platforms and operational spreadsheets.

You will establish clear data definitions so that meal delivery cost revenue funding and impact mean the same thing throughout the organization.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

Own products end-to-end: discovery prioritization user experience architecture implementation deployment monitoring and continuous improvement.
Spend time with kitchen staff program teams finance staff restaurants and community partners to understand how work actually happens.
Build polished interfaces APIs backend services databases integrations and data pipelines.
Establish secure authentication role-based permissions auditability testing documentation observability backups and production support practices.
Make disciplined build-versus-buy decisions and prevent unnecessary complexity.
Use modern AI development tools to increase velocity without compromising security reliability or engineering judgment.
Direct external engineers and vendors where appropriate while retaining ownership of the architecture and core product.
Translate technical decisions into plain language and communicate risks tradeoffs progress and costs clearly to nontechnical leaders.
Help recruit and mentor additional engineers as Rethink Foods technology function grows.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Within 90 Days

You have mapped the existing systems data workflows risks and technical debt; established a prioritized product roadmap; and shipped at least one meaningful production improvement used by Rethink Food staff.

Within Six Months

The first version of the Rethink Command Center is live. Leadership and operators can see reliable meal volumes unit economics delivery performance contract performance and exceptions without manually assembling multiple spreadsheets.

Within Twelve Months

Rethink Food has a trusted operational data foundation.
A marketplace and community-demand map MVP is operating in at least one market.
One end-to-end workflowfrom demand and funding through production delivery verification and reportingis running through the platform.
Major recurring reports are substantially automated.
Teams spend less time entering reconciling and searching for information.
The technology is secure documented monitored and ready to scale.
Rethink Food has a clear plan for its next engineering hires and technology investments.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

At least seven years of professional software engineering experience or equivalent evidence of exceptional ability.
A record of personally taking meaningful products from an ambiguous problem through architecture production launch and ongoing operation.
Strong full-stack capability across modern frontend backend database infrastructure and integration work.
Deep proficiency with technologies such as TypeScript React or and/or Python SQL PostgreSQL APIs cloud infrastructure and CI/CD.
Experience designing data models and integrating fragmented systems through APIs webhooks batch pipelines and event-driven workflows.
Production experience with AI-enabled products including LLM APIs structured outputs retrieval tool use evaluations guardrails and human review.
Strong product judgment and the ability to distinguish an essential workflow from an impressive but unnecessary feature.
Experience implementing authentication permissions audit trails monitoring testing and secure handling of sensitive information.
The ability to work effectively with frontline operators executives designers vendors and nontechnical subject-matter experts.
Comfort operating with significant autonomy imperfect information and changing priorities.
A bias toward shipping learning and improving rather than overengineering.
Clear communication low ego intellectual honesty and genuine respect for users.

We care more about what you have built and how you think than where you went to school.

HELPFUL EXPERIENCE

Experience in any of the following would be valuable but is not required:

Marketplaces logistics supply chains field operations or workforce-management products.
Food systems restaurant technology healthcare Medicaid programs government contracting or nonprofit operations.
BigQuery HubSpot geospatial products mapping platforms data visualization or mobile-first web applications.
Building a product or engineering function from an early stage.
Working in privacy-sensitive or regulated environments.

HOW WE WORK

Rethink Food values inventiveness vulnerability thoughtfulness and kindness. We expect this engineer to challenge assumptions listen closely to users acknowledge when something is not working and build practical solutions with care.

This role is based in New York City because the best software for Rethink Food will be built by someone who sees the kitchen meets the users and understands the physical operationnot only the database.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The annual salary range for this position is $225000$265000. The final offer will reflect the candidates experience technical depth product leadership and record of shipping complex systems.

We also offer a complete benefits package including medical dental vision disability life insurance PTO paid holidays two weeks per year for an organization-wide office closure to recharge a retirement plan with employer match a progressive parental leave plan and free nutritious lunch everyday!

HOW TO APPLY

Please submit your résumé or LinkedIn profile relevant GitHub or product links where available and a brief response to the following:

Tell us about one product you personally took from an unclear problem to a successful production launch. What did you build yourself what tradeoff did you make and what happened after launch

EEO STATEMENT

Rethink Food is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race color creed religion gender (including gender identity or expression) pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions sexual orientation marital status domestic violence sexual violence or stalking victim status ancestry national origin alienage or citizenship age disability military or veteran status genetic information or predisposing genetic characteristic or other protected status. The organization is an Equal Opportunity Employer drug-free workplace and complies with ADA regulations as applicable.

Required Experience:

Senior IC