- Salary
- $185k – $200k
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Type
- Full-time
- Department
- Engineering
- Seniority
- Senior
- Education
- Master
- Visa
- Not sponsored
- Source
- RecruiterFlow
Description
Technacity Group is partnering exclusively with Symbium to find up to two Senior Software Engineers for a pivotal moment in the company's growth. This is not a standard job posting; it is a curated search for a specific kind of engineer, and we are involved at every step of the process to make sure the fit is right on both sides.
If you apply through Technacity, you will have a direct line to the hiring team, context on what Symbium is actually looking for beyond what any job description can capture, and a partner who will advocate for you throughout the process.
About Symbium
Symbium is a San Francisco-based startup on a mission to reinvent how citizens interact with local government, starting with permitting for clean energy. Their platform — built on proprietary Computational Law (Complaw®) technology originally developed at Stanford's AI Lab — encodes government regulations as executable logic, enabling real-time permit compliance checks and instant approvals for solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps, and more.
They are live with 270+ cities across the US and growing fast. Every engineer at Symbium ships work that directly accelerates the country's transition to clean energy. This is not a company where your code disappears into a dashboard no one reads — it helps real people get real projects approved faster.
The team is small (~9 people), tight-knit, and works side by side every day. C-level executives, engineers, and interns share the same space, debate the same decisions, and hold each other accountable to the same high standard. If you have wanted to work somewhere that moves fast, takes ownership seriously, and actually cares about what you're building, this is worth your attention.
The Opportunity
Symbium is hiring up to two Senior Software Engineers to support the next phase of platform growth. These two roles are intended to be complementary rather than identical:
Role 1 — Platform and Operations Focus
This engineer takes ownership of the infrastructure layer: refactoring and scaling existing systems, establishing DevOps practices, managing stack migrations, and building the reliability and observability foundation that supports Symbium's expansion to thousands of cities. If you have built platforms from the ground up and know what "production-ready at scale" actually requires, this role is for you.
Role 2 — First-Principles Product Engineering Focus
This engineer goes deep on the Complaw® system and AI roadmap: encoding regulations as logic programs, owning the schema that drives compliance checks, leading the integration of deterministic AI features, and building the tools that make the law-to-code framework faster and more maintainable. If you think in systems, reason from first principles, and are drawn to problems where the output has to be provably correct, this role is for you.
Both roles report directly to the CTO. Both require full-stack capability, high ownership, and the ability to operate with minimal direction in a fast-moving environment.
What You Will Own
Build and scale core systems
•Lead the execution of Symbium's AI roadmap, ensuring determinism and accuracy in mission-critical workloads while building scalable, production-ready features
•Build and maintain robust workflows, APIs, integrations, and backend systems supporting large-scale, high-reliability permitting functions
•Architect, design, and build platform components that can scale from 1 city to 1,000
•Drive engineering quality through strong practices in testing, observability, code quality, and data modeling
Codify law into executable workflows
•Translate regulatory text into logical statements and structured, verifiable code — bridging the gap between law and software
•Own the schema underlying Complaw® workflows: add rule structures, extend reasoning capabilities, and keep the model accurate as laws evolve
•Debug rule chains by tracing logic from input facts to conclusions, preserving explainability at every step
•Treat precision as a hard requirement — in mission-critical compliance workflows, wrong answers have real consequences for the people depending on them
Shape technical direction
•Influence architectural decisions, tooling choices, and engineering standards
•Work directly with the CTO and CEO to shape engineering priorities and technical strategy
•Contribute to documentation, knowledge-sharing, and practices that strengthen team alignment
Strengthen the team
•Provide thoughtful code reviews, design feedback, and peer mentorship (no people management)
•Onboard new engineers and help them understand systems, patterns, and architectural principles
•Work cross-functionally with product, design, policy experts, and customers to clarify requirements and shape solutions
What Symbium Is Looking For
Beyond the technical requirements, it is the working style and mindset that succeeds at Symbium. The engineers who thrive here share a few things in common:
They build from first principles. They do not reach for a framework before understanding the problem. They can reverse-engineer a system, reason about tradeoffs from the ground up, and explain their decisions clearly.
They bring structure to chaos. When something is ambiguous, they do not wait for clarity to arrive — they create it. They know how to prioritize, ask the right questions, and come to the table with a point of view.
They identify risks and push back constructively. Working directly with founders means being honest about what could go wrong. The best engineers here do not just execute — they flag concerns early, propose alternatives, and earn trust by being right more often than not.
They know what they know and what they do not. Self-awareness is a core competency at a company this size. Engineers who can say "here is what I know, here is what I need to find out, and here is how I will find it" move faster and make better decisions than those who pretend to have all the answers.
They have solved at-scale problems, more than once. Symbium is not looking for startup generalists — they are looking for engineers who have already operated at scale and know what that requires. The ideal background includes progression through multiple tiers of responsibility (associate, senior associate, senior engineer, and beyond) across companies of different sizes and stages. An engineer who spent several years at a large company being promoted through the ranks, then brought that experience into a smaller or faster-moving environment, is a stronger signal than someone with only early-stage exposure. What matters is that the at-scale problems are not new to you — you have solved them before and can apply that pattern recognition here.
Required Qualifications
•7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, including designing, building, and maintaining production systems end-to-end
•Deep proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript and Node.js, with experience building reliable systems on AWS
•Strong full-stack capabilities across backend services, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and modern front-end development (React)
•Extensive experience with databases, data modeling, and SQL — schema design, query optimization, and index strategy at scale
•Experience developing AI/ML-driven features and integrating deterministic model-based systems into production workflows
•Demonstrated engineering leadership: guiding architecture, influencing technical decisions, and mentoring engineers
•A collaborative working style with frequent check-ins and a bias toward early course correction over long stretches of solo work
•High ownership, accountability, and attention to detail in mission-critical environments
Preferred Qualifications
•Experience with logic, constraint, or declarative programming paradigms (Prolog, Datalog, or similar)
•Background in platform engineering, DevOps, or stack migration at scale
•Experience building or integrating with government systems, regulated industries, or third-party APIs with strict compliance requirements
•Experience building compilers, rule engines, or domain-specific languages
•Background that includes both large-company engineering (with progression through multiple seniority levels) and experience in a faster-moving or smaller-scale environment
•Domain knowledge in permitting, clean energy, or government technology
•Master's degree or higher in Computer Science or a related field
Compensation and Benefits
•Base salary: $185,000 – $200,000
•Equity: Meaningful stock options in a growing, venture-backed company
•Benefits: Competitive health coverage, 401k, and the kind of early-employee upside that comes with joining a company at this stage
•Location: Onsite in San Francisco, CA — 5 days per week, near the Ferry Building. Relocation to California required prior to start. Symbium does not provide visa sponsorship at this time.
The Interview Process
Symbium's process is in-person and moves quickly:
1. Initial conversation with the Technacity team to align on fit and context
2. Intro call with the CTO
3. Two technical rounds in person at the SF office — systems design and coding (60–90 min each)
4. Founder Wrap-Up Conversation
How to Apply
This search is being conducted exclusively through Technacity Group. To be considered, please reach out directly to:
Ashley Vallett, Founder & CEO, Technacity Group
[email protected] | 949-607-8032
Please include your resume, LinkedIn profile, and a brief note on which of the two roles aligns more closely with your background. We review every application personally and will contact you directly.
Symbium is an equal opportunity employer. Technacity Group is an equal opportunity recruiting partner.
Skills
JavaScriptTypeScriptReactNode.jsAWSSQLDevOpsCompliance
