Lead Software Engineer

Company Description Baton is a network-based referral platform that helps home services companies in pest control, plumbing, HVAC, and related industries exchange high-quality customer leads. Trusted providers use Baton to refer exclusive leads when jobs fall outside their service area, require services they do not offer, or must be declined for other reasons. The platform makes referrals easier, safer, and more rewarding, allowing businesses to support customers while turning nonqualified inquiries into qualified new business. Baton focuses on building a reliable, scalable system that strengthens relationships between service providers and drives measurable revenue growth for its partners. Mission The Lead Engineer exists to own the technical execution and architectural integrity of Baton’s codebase, translating the CTO’s high-level technical vision into clean, performant, and reliable full-stack applications. Operating within a continuous delivery framework, you will drive pipeline throughput, enforce rigorous code craftsmanship across our unified TypeScript stack, and serve as a force multiplier by actively unblocking and elevating the capabilities of the engineering staff. Outcomes We believe in clarity of execution. Success in this role means achieving the following quantifiable milestones: * Throughput & Flow: Increase team-wide engineering throughput by 20% within your first 6 months by optimizing deployment pipelines, enforcing strict Work-in-Progress (WIP) limits, and reducing the cycle time of tasks from "In Progress" to "Production." * Code Craftsmanship: Maintain an average Pull Request (PR) lifetime (from initial open to merge) of under 48 hours within 4 months, ensuring a healthy balance between rapid pipeline flow and rigorous, thoughtful async code reviews. * Vision Execution: Successfully take ownership of Baton's technical roadmap execution, independently scoping, architecting, and launching 3 major core platform initiatives from high-level vision to production with zero hand-holding. * Codebase Health & Performance Guardrails: Ensure zero degradation of core application performance (e.g., page load times, API latency) while scaling the feature set over the next 12 months, proactively identifying and refactoring high-friction technical debt before it bottlenecks team velocity. * Team Force Multiplier: Successfully mentor and level up the existing engineering staff, resulting in at least two mid-level/junior developers expanding their autonomous scope of work and requiring less daily oversight within 12 months. * Technical Onboarding: Author a comprehensive technical playbook and architecture map of the codebase, reducing the time-to-first-production-deploy for future engineering hires to less than 5 business days. Key Responsibilities * Architect & Code: Design, build, and maintain Baton’s core platform and services, writing exemplary, robust full-stack TypeScript code. * Pipeline Management: Manage and monitor the team's daily development flow, proactively identifying stuck tasks or blocked PRs, and stepping in to unblock the pipeline before bottlenecks form. * Technical Spec'ing: Take ambiguous, high-level visions from the CTO, break them down into concrete technical specs, and steer the team to execute continuously without needing artificial sprint timeboxes. * Mentorship & Reviews: Participate in rigorous code reviews and deliver feedback in a way that teaches, builds confidence, and upskills the team. * System Integrity: Proactively surface solutions and refactor structural flaws or performance bottlenecks without waiting for permission. * Incident Response: Act as a stabilizing, calm force for the engineering team during critical production outages or high-stakes deployments, executing methodical troubleshooting over chaotic hotfixes. Technical Requirements * Full-Stack TypeScript Mastery: Deep, hands-on understanding of modern, type-safe full-stack paradigms (e.g., server-side rendering, unified database-to-browser type safety, and advanced data-fetching/caching patterns). * Backend & Architecture: Strong foundation in core Computer Science concepts (data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems) with an expert ability to design modular, scalable, and highly performant application architectures. * Modern Practices: Proficiency with databases (relational/NoSQL), APIs (RESTful/GraphQL), cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), and modern DevOps tools (version control, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring/observability). Leadership & Behavioral Competencies * Extreme Ownership: A proactive mindset that drives solutions to completion rather than waiting for permission to fix structural flaws or technical debt. * High Efficiency: The ability to masterfully balance personal coding output with high-level pipeline and flow management. * Low Ego & High Integrity: A professional who prioritizes the "right solution" over being right, welcomes healthy technical debate, and creates a psychologically safe environment for the team. * Clear Communication: The ability to act as a bridge between technical execution and business requirements, explaining complex architectural decisions cleanly to product managers or executive leadership without isolating jargon. Experience * Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience. * Proven experience leading technical projects and guiding other engineers through design and implementation. * Prior experience in marketplace, fintech, or B2B SaaS products is highly preferred. Compensation, Equity, & Benefits * Base Salary: $140,000 – $180,000 USD DOE. * Benefits: Health, Dental, and 401k. * Equity Stake: Meaningful early-stage equity options. * Location: 100% Remote (US-based or compatible time zones).