Staff Fullstack Engineer

About Us

Gizmo is an AI startup on a mission to make learning so easy that anyone can learn anything. We’re building Duolingo for anything - a platform that uses gamification and social mechanics to make learning fun. With over 1.7 million monthly active users and $5M in annual recurring revenue, we’re already one of the fastest-growing startups in the UK. Backed by leading investors, we recently raised $22M in Series A funding to accelerate our vision of helping 1 billion people learn.

Role Overview

We’re looking for a Staff level Fullstack Product Engineer (Individual Contributor) with a strong backend focus to join our small, highly talented team at Gizmo. While we have a deliberately flat structure, this is a high-impact role for an experienced engineer who is excited to own meaningful parts of our product and help shape the technical foundations of our learning platform. You’ll report directly to the Co-Founder/CTO, work closely with design and product, and play a key role in shaping the core experience for our rapidly growing user base. You’ll do this by building and scaling the systems that power our learning platform and delivering backend infrastructure and product features that make learning intuitive, playful and engaging. You’ll be comfortable working across the full stack, but your primary focus will be on designing and shipping high-quality backend systems and APIs. If you’re looking to join an engaging, collaborative team during an exciting stage of growth, with plenty of opportunity to make a significant impact and grow alongside us, this is the perfect time to join Gizmo and help shape the future of learning.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, maintain and scale backend services and APIs that power our learning platform across web and mobile.
• Collaborate closely with engineers, designers and founders to deliver features that are seamless, intelligent and impactful.
• Contribute across the full stack. While backend development will be your focus, you’ll support frontend codebases and product features when needed.
• Integrate advanced product capabilities such as personalisation, gamification and spaced repetition into the core learning experience.
• Own features end-to-end, from architectural design and implementation to deployment, iteration and ongoing improvement.
• Participate in code reviews, technical planning and team stand-ups, helping us maintain a high engineering standard.
• Work closely with the team to continuously improve performance, reliability and scalability as we grow.

Technical Requirements

• Strong fullstack engineering fundamentals with a backend focus and proven experience shipping complex product features.
• Strong SQL skills are essential for this role.
• Experience with Python and TypeScript is beneficial, though not required.
• We are currently standardising our engineering stack around TypeScript, so you’ll have the opportunity to work with and develop in it.
• Preference (not essential) for experience with React and familiarity with tools such as BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Celery, Redis or RabbitMQ.
• Comfortable owning systems and features from concept to production and beyond.

Behaviours and Motivations

• Clear communicator who can break down complexity and collaborate effectively across technical and non-technical teams.
• Driven by impact. You prioritise work that moves the needle for users and the business.
• Self-starter with a maker mindset. We’re ideally looking for individuals with start-up or founder experience.
• Fast learner who is not afraid of new challenges.
• Ambitious, motivated and excited to build something meaningful.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary.
• You'll own a piece of what you’re building - equity included.
• Hybrid working model with 4 days in our Shoreditch, London office.
• The opportunity to become one of the earliest employees in one of the UK’s fastest-growing startups.
• Private health insurance.
• Enhanced parental leave.