Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. We’re all in on AWS, combining deep UX capability with senior engineering talent to get AI into production fast and keep it there.
We’ve earned the trust of leaders across Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Manufacturing and more, and earned a reputation as the nimble alternative to traditional global systems integrators. Founded in 2009, with delivery centers in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design. Our teams average 15+ years of experience. We move fast, sweat the details, and build things that actually ship.
Position Overview
We’re looking for a Staff Full Stack Engineer to lead the design and delivery of complex, integration-heavy platforms. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who can define front-end architecture and technical strategy, lead complex UI systems development, and confidently own large parts of the system end-to-end.
In this role, you will work as a key technical contributor on a cross-functional team, defining standards and best practices, building scalable systems, and solving complex integration challenges. You’ll build and integrate across channel surfaces including chat, voice, and web, craft front-end experiences for client demos and prototypes, mentor more junior engineers, collaborate closely with senior engineers and leadership, and deliver high-quality work where reliability, performance, and scalability are critical.
Why This Role Matters
At Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate.
Every role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. You’ll build the integrations that connect AI to real channel surfaces, and the demos and prototypes that bring those systems to life in front of decision-makers. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on.
What You’ll Do
Craft & Delivery
- Define front-end architecture and technical strategy, designing scalable platforms and leading complex UI systems development (e.g., React, Angular, Next.js, TypeScript)
- Build polished, demo-ready front-end experiences that communicate the value of AI systems to clients and stakeholders
- Define front-end standards and best practices, and contribute to shared design systems
- Lead back-end development and API architecture in Python and Node.js, integrating complex systems and third-party platforms
- Design and implement channel integrations across chat, voice, and web surfaces, including real-time messaging, webhook pipelines, and event-driven patterns
- Design efficient database schemas and optimize performance across relational and NoSQL systems
- Drive backend performance, scalability, and reliability, and own implementation of security best practices including authentication and authorization
- Lead monitoring, observability, and reliability practices across production systems
- Lead the design and integration of AI services into production full-stack systems, including LLM APIs, streaming, tool and function calling, multi-step agent flows, and RAG patterns
- Bring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude, Cursor, and other modern AI assistants to ship higher-quality work at pace
Collaboration & Communication
- Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to align technical decisions with product and business goals
- Communicate complex technical tradeoffs and architectural decisions clearly across engineering and non-engineering stakeholders
- Lead code reviews and design discussions, raising the quality bar for the team
Leadership & Influence
- Establish front-end and full-stack engineering standards that lift quality and consistency across the team
- Mentor junior and mid-level engineers, helping them grow their craft, confidence, and impact
- Make architectural decisions with thoughtful consideration of tradeoffs and long-term implications
What You’ll Bring
- 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with experience leading complex full-stack initiatives
- Deep proficiency in React or Angular with strong JavaScript and TypeScript skills (e.g., React, Angular, Next.js)
- Strong experience with state management
- Strong command of modern CSS frameworks and build tooling
- Strong back-end development and API architecture experience in Python and Node.js
- Hands-on experience building channel integrations across chat (e.g., Slack, Teams, SMS), voice (e.g., Twilio, PSTN), and web surfaces
- Strong testing practices across unit, integration, and UI testing
- Deep expertise in relational and NoSQL databases, caching, and query optimization
- Strong experience with microservices architecture, event-driven systems, and message queues
- Strong experience with cloud platforms and container orchestration
- Strong experience with CI/CD pipelines
- Strong experience integrating AI services into production full-stack systems, including LLM APIs, streaming, tool and function calling, multi-step agent flows, and RAG patterns
- Ability to build fast, high-fidelity front-end demos and prototypes that communicate technical capability to non-technical audiences
- Comfort working closely with design tools and partners to ship polished, accessible UI (e.g., Figma)
- Demonstrated leadership and technical mentoring experience across a team or organization
- Strong stakeholder communication skills, with the ability to translate technical depth across audiences
- Demonstrable, day-to-day usage and expert knowledge of AI-forward tools such as Claude and Cursor
- Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate highly ambiguous technical and business challenges with sound judgment
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