Full Stack Engineer

We're bringing on our first engineer besides the founder, on contract. Travu is live: a Next.js web app in front, a Java and Spring Boot API behind it, MongoDB underneath, and real people planning real trips on top. You would be the second person who knows how all of it fits together, which is both the appeal and the responsibility.

About the role

You will work across the stack rather than sit on one side of it. Some weeks that means building a screen in Next.js with React and Tailwind, other weeks it means adding an endpoint to one of the Spring Boot modules, writing the tests around it, and working out why something is slow in production. You will take features from a rough description to something users can touch, and you will fix what breaks. There is no ticket queue to hide behind and no separate QA to catch what you missed, so you will be expected to test your own work and care whether it holds up. You will pair with the founder, who wrote most of what exists today, and you will inherit real ownership of parts of it quickly.

Who we’re looking for

• One to four years writing software professionally, or less with work you can show us
• Comfortable in JavaScript and React. We use Next.js with the App Router, and you should be able to find your way around it
• Some Java, or enough of another typed backend language that Spring Boot will not frighten you
• You write tests without being asked, because you would rather find the bug than have a user find it
• You can read an unfamiliar codebase and work out what it is doing before you change it
• Clear about what you do not know. Guessing quietly is the expensive habit here
• Set up to work as a contractor: your own machine, your own hours within reason, and able to invoice us monthly

Nice to have: Spring Boot, MongoDB, Tailwind, WebSockets, Docker, or anything you have shipped and then kept running. If you have worked on a product with real users rather than only coursework, say so.

What we expect from you

• Build features end to end, from the React screen to the API endpoint behind it
• Write the tests that go with your work, and keep the existing suite green
• Fix the bugs that come through triage, and say when a fix should really be a rethink
• Watch for what is slow or fragile in production and raise it before it becomes an incident
• Review the founder’s code as readily as he reviews yours
• Leave the codebase a little clearer than you found it, without drive-by rewrites

What’s in it for you?

Beyond the money:

• Touch every layer: React, Spring Boot, MongoDB, realtime, media, AI features.
• Ship to production in your first week, not your first quarter.
• No ticket factory. You help decide what gets built, not just build it.
• Learn a real multi-module backend from the person who designed it.
• Your work is visible. Point at a live product and name the parts you built.
• Contract now, with room to talk about something longer if it works.

Compensation

Your package is made up of:

• Monthly contract fee, invoiced
• Power allowance
• Internet allowance
• Lunch and feeding allowance
• Travel allowance
• Equipment allowance

This is a contract engagement rather than employment, billed monthly against full-time hours. We will agree the initial term and notice period before you start, and we would rather extend a contract that is working than run a search again.

Travu is self funded, so we would rather put the range up front than waste your time. It is not what a foreign remote contract pays, and we know it. What it does buy you is the whole stack, real ownership from week one, and a short line between an idea and production.

Our recruitment process

1. We read your application, your code, and your product trial notes
2. A 20 to 30 minute call about your work and how you think
3. A small, assessment task that mirrors the actual work you would do at travu: time-boxed, and realistic problem solving.
4. A final conversation with the founder, plus a reference check

We try to move quickly and keep you posted along the way.

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