Senior Full-Stack Engineer (React/Node/TypeScript) — First Engineering Hire, Australian EdTech

Remote — Coimbatore preferred; Tamil Nadu / India considered · Full-time · Works directly with the founder in Australia

Meeting our criteria: If you don't think you meet the criteria specified below that is okay. Send through your application. We consider all applicants and we'll be back in touch if we think you might be suitable.

About the role

Merit LMS is a live learning platform used by school children, their tutors and administrators in Australia. We're growing from hundreds of students to thousands, and the platform has to be rock-solid before we do. Making it so is this job. It's a TypeScript product: React + Vite on the front end, Express + Prisma + PostgreSQL on the back end, running on AWS, with Stripe billing and AI-assisted marking.

We build with Claude Code, an agentic AI coding tool, and that's how we'll keep building. You're not being hired to out-type an AI. You're being hired to take over the technical running of the platform from the founder: decide how things get built, direct the AI agents that build them, and be the last line of defence before anything reaches a child's screen.

You'd be the only engineer. The founder is non-technical and is handing the platform over to you, but stays closely involved in the product and makes the business calls.

How decisions work here (please read this part)

- The founder makes all business decisions: pricing, what we sell, what we promise families, and what ships when.
- You own the technical and design approach. On work that's been handed to you, you pick the best way to do it. You don't need permission for every choice.
- Good ideas are welcome and expected, but you run them past the founder before building. Nothing significant gets built off your own bat.
- Your authority grows over about six months. You start with minor features and improvements. As trust builds, more of the day-to-day design and prioritisation calls become yours. The founder never fully checks out of the product.

If you want total autonomy from day one, or you'd rather be handed fully-specified tickets forever, this isn't the job. It sits in between, and it moves. Initially, you may be handed fully specified tickets, then gradually you will be given autonomy.

What you'll do, day to day

- Direct AI coding agents through real work: Get AI to write plans, split it into small phases, run the build, and review AI's work.
- Review AI-generated changes sceptically. Most of your value is catching the change that looks right, passes the checks, and is wrong. This is the core skill of the job, not a side task. You are allowed to use AI for all parts of planning, development and testing, but you need to ensure that the AI is guided correctly and it doesn't go off course and ultimately take ownership of the AI's outputs.
- Prove changes work. Trace the code paths yourself and drive the app in a browser before anything ships.
- Own releases end to end: feature switches, database migrations against live data, backups before risky steps, the gated deploy, and the checks after it.
- Write it all down: handover notes, decision records, and the registers of planned improvements and feature switches. This product's continuity lives in its documents, and you'd be their custodian.
- Work a standard 9:00 am to 5:00 pm IST day, so you overlap with Australian afternoons and can talk to the founder live. Close each day with a short written handover (just a Teams message will do).





What you own

- Security and children's privacy. Role boundaries between student, tutor and admin; login and session security; making sure no child sees another child's data and no AI output reaches a child unchecked. Anything touching logins, permissions or children's data gets careful human review here, and that review is yours.
- Getting ready to scale. Taking the platform from hundreds of students to thousands: automated tests, monitoring and alerts, performance under load, and infrastructure that grows without breaking.
- Reliability. If the site is down or a child can't finish a lesson, it's yours.
- The release pipeline: GitHub Actions, AWS, process management and environment config.
- Billing correctness. Stripe subscriptions, trials and cancellations. Mistakes here cost families money.
- Code quality over time. Left unchecked, AI agents duplicate code and hide errors. Pushing back on that is the job. Sometimes this can be as simple as managing the context memory of each session, i.e., not letting coding sessions run too long and stopping within, say, 60% to 70% of the context memory used, so the AI doesn't start hallucinating and then get solid handovers to continue in a new session.

About you (ideally, but all applicants considered)

- 5+ years building and shipping production web applications, strong in TypeScript, React and Node.
- Real experience running database migrations on a live production database with real customer data.
- You've owned a production system alone or nearly alone, and have the instincts that come with it.
- Fluent, sceptical use of AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex or similar). Show us something you directed an agent to build, and tell us about a time you caught it producing something subtly broken.
- Excellent code review. You can read an unfamiliar 500-line change and find the one line that's wrong. Or be valuable at using AI to do this.
- Clear, plain-English communication with a non-technical person. You explain risk honestly, including when the honest answer is "I'm not sure".
- Disciplined written handover. You leave a trail someone else could pick up.
- Reliable daily overlap with Australian hours, and a stable home working setup. A standard 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday in Indian time IST fits well with us, as tutoring runs till 8 p.m. in our local time (Australian Eastern time).

Nice to have

- Cybersecurity experience, which would be a real advantage. For example: application security and secure code review, penetration testing, hardening logins and sessions, AWS security, threat modelling, or handling a security incident. Certifications (such as OSCP, CompTIA Security+ or AWS Certified Security – Specialty) are welcome but not required.
- Scaling a web app through rapid growth: performance tuning, load testing, PostgreSQL under pressure.
- Adding automated tests to an existing codebase (for example Playwright or Vitest).
- Prisma, PostgreSQL, Express, Tailwind/shadcn, Vite · AWS operations · GitHub Actions · Stripe subscription billing.
- Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) and designing for children.




- Previous experience working with sensitive personal data that the law protects (such as children's, health or financial records).
- AI in production: prompt design, provider fallback, cost control.

What this job is not

We'd rather you rule yourself out now than three months in.

- There is no team. No one reviews your work but you and the agents you point at it.
- Automated testing is still being built. Building that safety net is part of your job.
- It's hardening, not greenfield. You'll be making a working, live product stronger and working down a list of known improvements. You won't be starting fresh.
- The codebase carries a lot of process: safety rules, phased work, registers and handovers. It exists because the product serves children and one bad release has real consequences. You need to find that sensible rather than annoying.

First six months

1. Month 1: learn it. Learn the system, the safety rules and the release process. Ship something small and low-risk, end to end. Start fixing bugs & issues. Getting started on product improvements.
2. Months 2–3: build the safety net. Automated tests on the paths that matter most (logging in, lessons, billing), better monitoring and alerts, and a security review of logins, permissions and children's data.
3. Months 3–4: take the lead. Work through the list of planned improvements, and lead a feature from plan to release.
4. Months 4–6: get ready for scaling. Find and fix what would break with ten times the students (performance, database load, infrastructure), and take on more of the design and prioritisation calls, with the founder's sign-off.

How we'll assess you

Three steps, no more.

1. A structured interview about a production system you owned, an incident you handled, and how you use AI coding tools critically.
2. A short, paid code-review exercise. We give you an AI-generated change like the ones you'd review here. You tell us what you'd approve, what you'd send back, and what you'd check before it went near a child. This is the actual job.
3. A conversation with the founder about risk, communication, and how you'd say no.

The package

- Salary: ₹10–14 lakh per year, depending on experience.
- Bonus: a performance-based bonus may be paid, at management's discretion.
- Employment: full-time employee in India, employed through an Employer of Record (a company that handles Indian payroll and employment on our behalf).
- Leave and benefits: standard Indian employment terms, provided through the Employer of Record.
- Equipment: we provide a work laptop.
- Tools: we provide your AI coding tools, including Claude Code.
- Location: remote. Coimbatore preferred; Tamil Nadu and the rest of India considered.
- Hours: a standard 9:00 am to 5:00 pm IST working day, for live overlap with Australian afternoons.
- Start: we understand notice periods and will wait for the right person. If you're available for an immediate start, that's a excellent plus.
- Conditions: offers are subject to background verification and a declaration that you won't hold a second job alongside this one.
- No fees: we will never ask you to pay anything at any stage of hiring.

How to apply

Send your CV (required). A cover letter is optional, but please answer these three questions — a few sentences each is plenty:

1. A production system you owned.
2. One thing an AI coding agent got wrong that you caught.
3. How you'd approach a database migration you can't undo.

If you have security experience, tell us about that too.

📌 Full Stack Engineer (Coimbatore)
🏢 Merit Tutoring
📍 Coimbatore