Founding Team Backend Engineer (Equity-Based)

Location: Remote

Commitment: Part-time, Side project, your 5-9 from your 9-5. We dont track your hours or set your schedule, we trust you, just get things done.

Compensation: 1-3% equity (vesting to be discussed)

Apply: Through Wellfound

About Palette

Palette is building the future of personalized digital experiences for Travel. We're leveraging user data and AI to create meaningful personalizations that enhance how people interact with our product. Our team is distributed across PST, CST, and EST, and we're looking for scrappy builders who thrive in startup environments.

The Role

We're seeking a backend engineer who can help us build robust analytics infrastructure and scale our data systems. You'll be joining a team where no one is dedicated solely to backend—this is your chance to own and shape our backend architecture from the ground up.

Your initial focus will be on analytics and tracking implementation, then expanding into AI-driven personalization features, API development, and database design based on product needs. We value engineers who don't just execute—we want someone who brings technical opinions, challenges assumptions, and contributes strategic thinking about our architecture.

What You'll Do

• Implement and optimize event tracking, page views, and conversion tracking across our platform
• Build and maintain server-side tracking infrastructure
• Design and develop APIs that support our growing product features
• Architect database solutions that scale with our user base
• Collaborate on AI developments that leverage user data for personalization
• Contribute technical insights and opinions on our product roadmap and architecture decisions
• Prioritize free and open-source solutions where possible to keep our stack lean and efficient

What We're Looking For

Required Skills & Experience:

• Strong JavaScript/TypeScript skills (this is critical)
• Experience with Next.js
• Experience with Node.js & Express
• Hands-on experience with analytics platforms (Google Analytics, RudderStack, or similar)
• Experience with server-side tracking, GTM, or data warehouses

What Makes You Stand Out:

• You're a builder who has built systems from scratch, not just maintained existing code
• You have startup experience and understand the scrappy, fast-paced nature of early-stage companies
• You're a creative problem solver who finds elegant solutions to complex challenges
• You default to free and open-source tools and can build efficiently with limited resources
• You have strong opinions about technical decisions but hold them loosely
• You're excited about AI and personalization technologies

Why Join Palette?

• Own meaningful equity in a growing startup (1-5%)
• Shape the technical architecture and product direction from the ground up
• Work with a distributed team that values flexibility and autonomy
• Build cutting-edge AI-powered personalization features
• Flexible remote work across compatible timezones (PST, CST, EST)

Commitment

This is an equity-based, after-hours position—think "5-9pm work" alongside your day job. Our team members maintain full-time roles elsewhere, so we value efficiency and impact over hours logged. We're looking for someone who's excited to build something meaningful in their spare time.

How to Apply

Apply through Wellfound. Please include:

• Your experience with the required tech stack
• Examples of systems you've built from scratch
• Why you're interested in an equity-based startup role
• Your thoughts on analytics infrastructure or AI personalization