Lead Software Engineer - Stealth AI Manufacturing Planning Startup
Company: UpLabs
Location: Remote (Remote)
Type: Full-time
Remote: Yes
Posted: 2026-06-29
About this role
Lead Software Engineer - Stealth AI Manufacturing Planning Startup
Remote
Portfolio roles
Remote
Full-time
About the Role:
UP.Labs is seeking a proven Lead Engineer with a track record in 0>1 environments to join a new AI platform in our portfolio. This stealth venture is reimagining how mid-market manufacturers manage production planning and scheduling- an area still dominated by spreadsheets, MRP noise, and manual firefighting. Built in partnership with a $1.5B+ truck body manufacturer, the platform is a demand-driven planning co-pilot that helps manufacturers reduce schedule volatility, improve on-time delivery, and scale operational intelligence across their plants.
This is not a role for someone looking to maintain or inherit a system. You’ll join as one of the earliest technical hires, working directly with the CTO to design and build core infrastructure from the ground up, and eventually grow into leading the engineering team as the company scales.
What You’ll Do:
- Own backend architecture and system design decisions alongside the CTO - whiteboard to production.
- Build and scale the core platform on a Node.js / Python stack with Azure Databricks as the data layer.
- Design and implement optimization-heavy algorithms for demand planning and production scheduling.
- Establish engineering patterns, standards, and discipline as the team grows from its earliest stage.
- Collaborate directly with product and data functions - the team is small, the surface area is wide.
- Mentor and eventually lead a small team of engineers, setting the technical bar without the ego.
- Use AI as a force multiplier across development and product capabilities.
How You’ll Operate:
- You rose through the ranks at a startup, not a big company. You built things from scratch and learned system design by doing it.
- You think architecturally, not just tactically - when complexity increases, you bring discipline to it, not workarounds.
- You’ve scaled ...