Job description

Who we are 25madison is a New York-based venture studio and investment platform. We build and invest in companies across healthcare, supply chain and industrials, and AI-powered business software. Our studio works alongside founders to identify problems worth solving, build products, and turn them into businesses. The role We’re looking for a strong, product-minded engineer who can take an ambiguous problem and turn it into working software. Someone who uses AI coding tools heavily, cares about the people using what they build, and doesn’t need every next step spelled out. You’ll report directly to our CTO, and work hands-on across startups in the studio. This is a building role: you’ll help decide what we should build, own the implementation, and stay close to how it performs with customers. What you’ll do • Take products from idea to production. Turn early concepts and customer problems into prototypes, ship useful first versions, and improve them as the business grows. • Work directly with founders, designers, and customers. Understand workflows, challenge assumptions, and help determine what matters most. Sometimes the right engineering decision is to build less. • Build across the stack. Own interfaces, backend services, data models, integrations, and AI-enabled workflows. Follow through on testing, deployment, and production reliability. • Use AI to expand what you can deliver. Make coding tools and agents a core part of your workflow while staying accountable for the architecture, security, and quality of what ships. What we’re looking for • A track record of shipping. You’ve built and maintained production software that people use. You can take meaningful work from an initial conversation through deployment without requiring a detailed specification. • Strong engineering fundamentals. You’re comfortable across frontend, backend, APIs, databases, and cloud infrastructure. You can debug unfamiliar systems, make sound technical tradeoffs, and keep solutions simple. • An established AI coding workflow. You already use AI tools extensively to build, test, debug, and refactor. You know how to direct them, recognize weak output, and verify the result. You can explain the code you ship. • Product empathy and judgment. You care whether the product makes someone’s job easier. You notice confusing interactions, ask good questions, and use customer feedback to change what you’re building. • High agency and clear communication. You identify what needs to happen, propose a path, and move it forward. You surface blockers early, ask for help when needed, and take responsibility for the outcome. • Startup experience is helpful. Evidence of what you can build and how you think matters more than a particular degree, title, or number of years. Why join You’ll work directly with a hands-on CTO and founders, learning how to build and scale ventures by doing the work. You’ll be involved in the decisions behind the software: which customer to serve, what to validate first, where to invest engineering time, and when to scale. The opportunity is to build across multiple companies, take meaningful ownership early, and see how your product and engineering decisions affect the business. How to Apply Submit your résumé and LinkedIn profile. As a part of the cover letter, please attach a couple of examples of things you’ve built. Tell us what you owned and how you used AI in the process. Brief descriptions are fine; public code is not required.

Requirements

Must-haves

What you’ll do
Take products from idea to production. Turn early concepts and customer problems into prototypes, ship useful first versions, and improve them as the business grows.
Work directly with founders, designers, and customers. Understand workflows, challenge assumptions, and help determine what matters most. Sometimes the right engineering decision is to build less.
Build across the stack. Own interfaces, backend services, data models, integrations, and AI-enabled workflows. Follow through on testing, deployment, and production reliability.
Use AI to expand what you can deliver. Make coding tools and agents a core part of your workflow while staying accountable for the architecture, security, and quality of what ships.
What we’re looking for
A track record of shipping. You’ve built and maintained production software that people use. You can take meaningful work from an initial conversation through deployment without requiring a detailed specification.
Strong engineering fundamentals. You’re comfortable across frontend, backend, APIs, databases, and cloud infrastructure. You can debug unfamiliar systems, make sound technical tradeoffs, and keep solutions simple.
An established AI coding workflow. You already use AI tools extensively to build, test, debug, and refactor. You know how to direct them, recognize weak output, and verify the result. You can explain the code you ship.
Product empathy and judgment. You care whether the product makes someone’s job easier. You notice confusing interactions, ask good questions, and use customer feedback to change what you’re building.
High agency and clear communication. You identify what needs to happen, propose a path, and move it forward. You surface blockers early, ask for help when needed, and take responsibility for the outcome.
Startup experience is helpful. Evidence of what you can build and how you think matters more than a particular degree, title, or number of years.
The opportunity is to build across multiple companies, take meaningful ownership early, and see how your product and engineering decisions affect the business.

Nice-to-haves

None flagged.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

Platform: breezy
Effort: medium