Staff Full Stack Engineer

Job description

About CookUnity

Food has lost its soul to modern convenience. And with it, has lost the power to nourish, inspire, and connect us. So in 2018, CookUnity was founded as the first-of-its-kind platform that connects the world with the source of truly great food: chefs. Today, CookUnity delivers 35 million meals a year from the industry’s best chefs to homes all over the country. Fresh. Ready-to-eat. And crafted with the passion that nourishes body and soul.

Unwilling to stop there, CookUnity is expanding beyond delivery to become an ever-innovating marketplace focused on our singular mission: empower Chefs to nourish the world.

If that mission has you hungry in more ways than one, you’ve found the right job posting.

About The Team:

Fraîche is CookUnity’s smart fridge solution, bringing fresh, chef-made meals, drinks, and snacks into offices across the U.S. With a mobile app, IoT-enabled fridges, and seamless backend operations, Fraîche is reshaping how people eat at work — making healthy, delicious food as easy as opening a fridge.

As part of CookUnity for Business, our B2B team is scaling rapidly. To get there, we’re expanding the Fraîche tech team with a critical hire: a Staff Full Stack Engineer who will own the architecture, product development, and engineering culture behind our smart fridge platform.

This role blends product thinking, hands-on coding, and leadership. You’ll work closely with our B2B Lead Tech, Product Managers, Backend and Frontend Engineers to deliver a robust, scalable experience that bridges physical and digital food experiences.

The Role:

• Own the Full Stack: Lead the development of features across mobile apps, internal tools (PWAs), APIs, and services — ensuring end-to-end quality and performance.
• Guide Tech Decisions: Define and implement best practices across the stack. Architect solutions that support our rapid growth and physical infrastructure (smart fridges, inventory systems, customer flows).
• Lead & Mentor: Support a growing team of engineers, starting with our Front-End & Back-End Engineers. Help define team rituals, code quality standards, and onboarding practices.
• Connect with IoT: Work on backend services that communicate with our fleet of connected fridges in real-time. Ensure uptime, automation, and traceability at scale.
• Drive Product Delivery: Collaborate with Product, Design, and Operations to scope, prioritize, and ship improvements that delight users and streamline operations.
• Balance Execution & Vision: Be hands-on with code while contributing to long-term technical strategy and integration with the broader CookUnity B2B platform.
• Collaborate Cross-Team: Coordinate with CookUnity’s central B2B team (React, Node, NestJS) to align on architecture, shared services, and platform migration strategy.

Our Current and Evolving Stack:

We leverage a modern cross-platform stack to power Fraîche’s smart fridge platform, and we’re always adapting to use the best tools for the job. Currently, our platform runs on a mix of proven and cutting-edge technologies, and we have big plans to evolve it in the next year:

• Flutter (Dart) – The core of our mobile and web apps, enabling a unified codebase for a seamless user experience across smartphones, tablets, and the fridge’s touchscreen interface.
• Symfony (PHP) – Our primary backend framework today, driving robust APIs and business logic. (We run PHP 8+ on a Platform.sh PaaS for now – familiarity with Platform.sh or similar cloud platforms is a plus, though not required.)
• Node.js & TypeScript – Used in specific services and tooling. We’re planning a transition to Node.js (with the NestJS framework) for new microservices in 2026, so you’ll be leading the charge in adopting a TypeScript-powered backend where it makes sense.
• Firebase/Firestore (Google Cloud) – Our platform takes advantage of Firestore for real-time data and synchronization. We leverage Google Cloud services to power features like live inventory updates and analytics.
• MQTT & IoT Communication – Our smart fridges are IoT devices! We use MQTT as a lightweight messaging protocol for real-time communication between the fridges and the cloud. This enables features like instant menu updates and remote monitoring.
• CI/CD & DevOps Tools – We believe in shipping fast and often. We use GitHub Actions for continuous integration and delivery, automating our tests and deployments. Docker and other DevOps best practices are in place to ensure smooth releases and stable operations.

As a Staff Engineer, you’ll have the opportunity to influence and shape this stack – maintaining what works, improving what can be better, and choosing new technologies as we scale.

Minimum Requirements:

• 7+ years of software development experience in full-stack or backend roles, building and shipping production applications.
• Front-End Expertise: Hands-on experience creating rich user interfaces in modern web or mobile frameworks. Exposure to cross-platform development is key – if you’ve worked with Flutter that’s a big plus (if not, experience with frameworks like React Native or modern web SPA frameworks and a willingness to learn Flutter is great).
• Backend Proficiency: Deep knowledge of building scalable backend APIs and services using Node.js (TypeScript) and/or PHP. You’ve designed RESTful (or GraphQL) APIs, worked with frameworks like NestJS, Express, Symfony, or Laravel, and are comfortable with both object-oriented and modern TypeScript back-end paradigms. (Our current backend is Symfony/PHP, and comfort with PHP is important while we gradually introduce more Node.js.)
• Cloud & Data: Strong experience with cloud platforms and databases. You’ve deployed or managed applications on Google Cloud and/or AWS, and you understand both SQL and NoSQL databases. (Experience with Firestore or real-time databases is a big plus.)
• DevOps & CI/CD: A DevOps mindset with experience in continuous integration and delivery. You’ve set up or worked with CI/CD pipelines (we use GitHub Actions) to automate testing and deployments. You are comfortable with containerization (Docker) and general cloud infrastructure management for a smooth development workflow.
• Technical Leadership: Proven ability to lead a team or project. You can make architectural decisions, guide junior engineers through code reviews, and uphold best practices. You take ownership of delivering quality software and can coordinate work across front-end and back-end to meet product goals.
• Communication & Collaboration: Excellent communication skills and experience working in collaborative, asynchronous team environments. You can work closely with product managers, designers, and other stakeholders, articulating technical concepts in a clear way. (We’re a distributed team that values proactive communication).
• Product & Startup Mindset: You care about the why behind the code. You’re passionate about building user-centric products – in our case, redefining how people access fresh meals through technology. You thrive in a fast-paced startup setting: iterating quickly, wearing multiple hats when needed, and always focusing on delivering value to users.
• Hardware/IOT Enthusiasm: A genuine excitement for hardware-aware development. Our product isn’t just an app, it’s a physical smart fridge network – you should be eager to dive into the challenges of building software that interfaces with IoT devices, sensors, and real-world operations. (You don’t need to be an electrical engineer, but you enjoy the idea of working with connected devices and learning the basics of how they operate.)

Preferred Requirements:

• Flutter & Dart: If you already have experience with Flutter for mobile/web development, that’s a strong bonus. You’ll be able to hit the ground running on our cross-platform apps.
• Symfony/PHP: While Node.js can be our future, hands-on experience with PHP (Symfony) is a plus for understanding and working with our existing codebase in the interim.
• IoT & MQTT: Prior experience building software for IoT or hardware devices. For example, familiarity with MQTT or other messaging protocols (like RabbitMQ, Kafka) used in real-time device communication. This would help you deeply understand our fridge connectivity out of the gate.
• Platform.sh or Similar PaaS: Knowledge of Platform.sh or similar cloud PaaS hosting environments. We use Platform.sh currently for our PHP app deployment – experience here means you can navigate our ops setup more easily (but if not, you’ll learn on the job).
• Startup/Small Team Experience: You’ve previously thrived in a startup or small agile team setting. You know how to balance rapid development with maintainable code, and you can adapt as priorities evolve.
• Domain Interest: A passion for food tech, marketplaces, or logistics is certainly nice to have. Loving what we do at CookUnity/Fraîche – empowering people to access fresh chef-made meals through technology – will make your role even more rewarding.

Benefits:

💸 Get paid in USD, Crypto, Euro, ARS. Whatever your choice! We use Deel to make things easier for you!

🗺 Work remotely: design the life that you want.

⛱ Enjoy 15 business days of vacation each year from the start date.

🎄16 fully paid Argentinean holidays.

🩺 Healthcare Benefit: Monthly stipend to use in your preferred healthcare provider.

🗓️ 5-year Sabbatical: After 5 years with CookUnity, you get a 4-week paid sabbatical.

🐣 Paid family leave.

🕯 Compassionate Leave: 3-5 days each time the need arises.

🧘🏽‍♀️ Customize the benefits that suit your needs! Access a range of perks tailored to you, including learning opportunities, wellness memberships, delivery apps, and more through our comprehensive benefit platform.

🧑‍🏫 Personalized English coach.

#LI-Hybrid

If you’re interested in this role, please submit your application and if we think you might be a fit, we’ll get in touch with you. Thank you for your time!

CookUnity is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are dedicated to creating a community of inclusion and an environment free from discrimination or harassment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status, protected veteran status, genetic information, or physical or mental disability.