ABOUT NOTO
Noto is building the AI native operating system for after school businesses like tutoring centers, music schools, and sports academies. Our mission is to power the 150K after-school businesses across the U.S. with a unified platform that replaces spreadsheets and outdated tools.
We recently raised a $3.8 M seed from Base10 Partners and South Park Commons.
Founded by two technical founders — AJ Ding (CEO) and Steve Wang (CTO) — we’re based in NYC and assembling a small, exceptional team of builders who care deeply about craft, users, and impact.
Join us to build software that empowers small-business owners in local communities!
[https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/f9cbb205-0c60-416d-9665-7567b61f256a/4be3625e-18e1-4ec6-a51c-4cc4e5cea3e4/karaoke%20with%20carrie%20and%20tpr.jpg]
(us at karaoke with one of our favorite customers)
TEAM BACKGROUND 🤝🏻
AJ Ding https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-ding-90826856/ (CEO) - Second-time founder and previously built an AI recruiting company https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hirefly. He was a machine learning engineer and data scientist at Quora, Lyft, & Meta. He studied Statistics at Yale and most importantly, he comes from a family of small business owners.
Steve Wang https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevewang223/ (CTO) - Former Head of Engineering at Nitra https://www.nitra.com/ (a16z backed vertical SaaS). He's worked in data science and engineering at Lyft. He studied math at Harvard, and his family is from Canada.
LOCATION 📍
- 4 days in-office (Union Square area)
- 1 day remote per week
- 1 week per quarter work from anywhere
- Occasional travel for team off sites and customer visits
WORK CULTURE 💼
- High Camaraderie: We are in the trenches together and celebrate our collective success.
- Low Ego: We believe in collaboration over hierarchy 🤝. We have a flat decision-making structure—great ideas can come from anywhere.
- High Output: Expect an intense, high-growth environment — roughly 55-60 hours on average. We invest that time because every week moves the product forward and our users closer to success.
- Have Fun: Hackathons in Mexico City 🌮, karaoke with customers, team off-sites.
- Growth Mindset: We attend industry events and learn directly from our users.
THE ROLE 🎯
We’re hiring a Senior or Staff Level Founding Engineer who will partner directly with our CTO (Steve) to help lead product, engineering, and design.
This is not a typical developer role.
You will:
- 🧭 Drive engineering execution – help with sprint planning, code reviews, and release quality.
- 🧩 Collaborate cross-functionally – work with QA, design, Customer Success, Sales, and GTM to guide product decision making, drive architecture, and shape how we build as we scale.
- ⚙️ Build with ownership – ship large features end-to-end, define engineering culture and process as we scale.
- 🏗️ Set technical direction – make architectural decisions that shape our next 3 years of growth.
- 🤝 Mentor & unblock others – be the first line of defense for technical and product questions and help the team move faster.
IDEAL CANDIDATE 💡
- Comfortable leading projects
- Hungry for growth and impact. There’s no ceiling to your growth here— take on as much responsibility as you’re ready for
- Thrives in ambiguous environments and takes ownership end-to-end
- Excited to help small businesses thrive through technology
- 5+ years of experience
- Full-stack (React, Next.js, Node, Postgres)
ENGINEERING CULTURE 🛠️
We value product-minded engineers who think like founders. You’ll own features end-to-end and help shape the roadmap.
We tolerate messiness to ship quickly, but take responsibility for cleaning up our tech debt.
As the founding engineering, you will help shape a strong engineering culture that keeps us efficient and motivated:
1. Always Be Shipping – Progress over perfection, iterate quickly
2. Pride in our Craft – Quality matters - we take pride in our work
3. Serve the Customer – Our users run small businesses; we exist to make their lives easier
COMPENSATION & PERKS 💰
- Competitive pay and meaningful equity 📈
- Office lunch and a stipend for work-related expenses 🍕
- Company Retreats – Join us for team retreats to bond, recharge, and plan the future together ✈️
- 100 % company-paid benefits 🏥
INTERVIEW PROCESS 🧩
1. 30 min behavioral with AJ
2. 45 min System Design
3. 45 min Coding Interview
4. Onsite (in NYC) to experience a day in the life
WHY WORK WITH US ❤️
- Serve everyday people in local communities and make a large impact in an underserved market
- "Y'all are incredible and have made such a difference in my life in ways both professional and personal. I'm grateful and indebted." - Noto Customer 🥰
- Each customer averages over 6 hours of usage / day)
- Work with a smart, collaborative, ambitious, and caring team
- Fast paced environment
- High level of ownership
- Fun founders + team off-sites 😄
👀 SOUND INTERESTING?
Let’s talk. If you’re excited to build from ( almost ) zero to one, own meaningful parts of the stack, and help scale a product loved by educators and creators, we’d love to meet you! ✉️