Senior Software Engineer: Node.js/TypeScript, Kafka & AI Coding Agents | Phoenix (Remote USA) | Up to $230K + Equity

"Houston, we have a product problem."

In 1970, a room full of NASA engineers got a box of spare parts, a hard deadline and one brief: make a square filter fit a round hole, or the crew doesn't come home. Nobody gave them a spec or a ticket. They defined the problem, designed the fix from a blank page and owned the outcome.

That's the engineer this search is for. And if you're doing it from Phoenix, so much the better.

The Command Module (Tech Details)

Core stack: Node.js and TypeScript across the backend services you'll own and designMessaging: Kafka, RabbitMQ and event-driven architecture, carrying high-volume business transactions between companies, where ordering, idempotency, retries and replay can't go wrongScale: hundreds of millions of transactions processed for hundreds of customers across thousands of live trading connections, so throughput and reliability are designed in from day one rather than patched in laterAI in the product: AI built into customer workflows, writing and maintaining the data rules that used to take people weeks of manual setup, and catching errors before they hit a customer's operationsAI in the workflow: coding agents are standard on every engineer's desk. You direct them, review their output line by line and own what ships, and you'll help shape how the team builds with themArchitecture ownership: you'll write the technical designs for large initiatives, plan for performance, scale and reliability up front, and make the business case for technical changeProduct surface: a self-service platform and API, so customers integrate and go live themselves rather than waiting in a queue for someone to do it for them

Mission Brief

Our client is a venture-backed, AI-first B2B software company modernizing the plumbing of the supply chain. Hundreds of brands, from Fortune 500 manufacturers to fast-growing consumer names, run hundreds of millions of transactions through its platform. It's growth-stage, around 100 people and remote-first, and coding agents are standard kit for every engineer on the team.

The Tempe light rail bridge after dark. Lots of traffic, all of it on time.

The Flight Plan

You'll take major product initiatives from problem statement to production architecture. You'll decide how the system should work, direct AI agents to help build it, and review what they produce as hard as you'd review a senior colleague's pull request. Fundamentals matter more here, not less. You can't sign off on agent-written code for a system you don't deeply understand.

You'll mentor other engineers, push the technical direction forward and work closely with product to make sure what ships moves the business.

Mission Requirements

The hiring manager scores every applicant against these. Read them carefully.

You've owned the technical design of a major system end to end. This is the number one filter. You took a blank page and turned it into an architecture, rather than working inside one somebody else drew. You made the calls, lived with the tradeoffs and can explain why.Real product ownership. You defined the problem, made product decisions and shipped something that changed outcomes for users or the business. Your resume should say what you designed and shipped and what changed because of it.Expert Node.js and TypeScript, backend first. You don't need to be full-stack. You do need to be a backend product engineer.Distributed systems and messaging in production. You've worked with Kafka, RabbitMQ or similar in high-volume, transactional settings. You've thought hard about event design, ordering, idempotency, retries and what happens at 3am when a consumer falls behind.You ship production work with AI coding agents. You work agent-first day to day, and you're better still if you've built agent features or your own agent tooling (custom skills, review loops, agents checking agents). Tab-complete in an IDE doesn't count. Agent experience is a strong bonus, but it never stands in for design depth.Growth-stage background. Ideally Series C and beyond, or Series A/B with genuine enterprise traction. Big tech experience is welcome alongside a real startup chapter, but large-company-only careers won't clear the bar.5 to 15 years in product engineering.Product-minded and a strong communicator. You hold opinions and defend them, and you're equally comfortable having them challenged. The team wants both halves of that.SaaS background is a plus. Supply chain, logistics or B2B data exchange experience is a bigger one.

Location: Phoenix, remote USA. The team prefers Mountain or Pacific time, and Arizona skips daylight saving, so Phoenix lines up with the Pacific coast for most of the year. You'll need full US work authorization, since no visa sponsorship is available.

"Failure is not an option. Neither is a resume that only lists tools."

Mill Avenue Bridge, Tempe. The Valley has a serious engineering scene, and it keeps growing.

Who's Already Reached Mission Control

One recent profile went straight through to the hiring manager. He had nine years in TypeScript and Node, event-driven pipelines processing billions of events a day on a Kafka-protocol stack, and earlier Kafka work at a late-stage startup. He had also built his own agent skills that measurably lifted his team's shipped output. That combination is what lands: messaging at real volume, a startup chapter, and agent work you built yourself rather than just used.

Abort Criteria

This one isn't for you if:

Your experience is mostly platform, devex, infrastructure or frontend rather than product engineeringYour career is mostly contract, consulting or agency work, or a run of one to two year stintsYou're actively running a startup or side venture you plan to keep goingYour resume lists tools and responsibilities without showing what you personally owned and its impactYour resume leans heavily on scrum and process vocabularyYour background is mainly academic or government, without commercial product shipping

The Payload

Base up to $230K plus competitive equityArizona's flat 2.5% state income tax, so more of that package stays with youRemote-first, with unlimited PTO and a work-from-home lifestyle benefitReporting into a deeply technical engineering leader who gives clear, direct feedbackAn AI-first engineering culture where agents are part of how the team builds every dayMultiple hires across the team

Sunset over the Sonoran. The commute is a hallway, the view is not.

Requesting Launch Clearance

Apply with your resume and a few lines covering:

The one system you personally designed from a blank page: what it did, how the messaging or event flow worked, and what changed for users once it shippedHow you work with AI coding agents today, and anything agent-related you've built yourselfYour location and work authorizationYour salary expectation

A resume that shows what you owned will beat a long one every time.

Big Wave Digital is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client.