Senior Full-Stack Engineer
First seen by Alion on Sep 25, 2026.
Senior Full Stack Engineer (4 to 8 years)
About RunLoyal
RunLoyal is a fast-growing vertical SaaS and payments company headquartered in Atlanta, GA, building the operating system for the pet care industry — boarding, daycare, grooming, training, and dog parks. Our platform runs the daily operations of hundreds of real businesses, and our 2026 focus is scaling the product engine behind an expanding enterprise segment.
We're hiring a Senior Full Stack Engineer to lead our most strategic builds.
The Role
This is not a sprint-pool position. You'll operate the way forward-deployed engineers do — dropped into a problem space and trusted to drive it from ambiguity to shipped. You'll be handed a strategic initiative (a new AI product build, a greenfield module, a flagship platform project), gather context directly from stakeholders and customers, set the technical direction, structure the work, and deliver with teammates — leading from the front.
You'll report to the Head of Engineering and work embedded with the Head of Product on new initiatives, in an independent lane with direct access to leadership. We operate AI-native: our newest product surfaces are being designed and built with agentic AI workflows at the core, and you'll help define how AI-native engineering works here — not just follow a playbook.
Honest framing: we're a fast-moving, founder-driven team in transition toward modern SaaS delivery practice. You'll have real autonomy and real accountability in equal measure. If you need a fully paved road, this isn't your role. If you've shipped meaningful things through ambiguity before — and enjoyed it — read on.
What You'll Own
1. Strategic build projects — end-to-end
Own flagship initiatives from first principles to production: architecture, delivery plan, execution with teammates, release, and post-release iteration. You're accountable for the outcome, not just the code — which means demoing early, cutting scope intelligently, and shipping working software on a rhythm.
2. Technical leadership from the front
Set the technical direction on your projects and bring teammates along through visible working practice — pairing, reviewing, and raising the bar rather than issuing instructions. Mentor by doing. Contribute to system design and architecture decisions across the platform, and push our engineering practices forward.
3. AI-augmented delivery — our default operating mode
Independently architect and deliver full projects using AI-augmented workflows: agentic coding (Claude Code or equivalent), spec-driven development, AI-led test generation, and structured context management. This is how the role works day-to-day, not an accelerator bolted on. You'll co-author our internal AI engineering playbooks and raise the bar for how the whole team builds.
4. Core engineering
Design and ship scalable Spring Boot microservices, RESTful APIs, and responsive frontends in Angular or React. Write efficient SQL, optimize JVM performance, own production issues on your surfaces end-to-end, and leave the codebase better documented than you found it.
Leadership & Agency — what we'll evaluate hardest
- You lead from the front. You've set direction on projects and carried teammates with you — through working code and clear communication, not title or authority
- High agency. You identify what's blocking the outcome and remove it yourself — whether it's code, process, or a conversation someone needs to have
- Strong stakeholder muscle. You communicate clearly upward and outward — written updates, proactive demos, and comfort presenting to leadership and customers directly
- Async-native. You work effectively across time zones with documentation and over-communication as defaults, not afterthoughts
- Calm ownership under ambiguity. Handed a loosely defined problem, you structure it, sequence it, and start shipping
What You Bring
Must have
- Significant professional software development experience with real ownership scar tissue — you've led projects, not just tickets. We care about evidence, not years
- Strong hands-on Java and Spring Boot; solid microservices architecture and REST API design
- Frontend experience with Angular or React
- Experience with relational databases (MySQL/PostgreSQL) and SQL optimization; JVM fundamentals and backend performance
- AI-native engineering (hard requirement). You already deliver work through AI-augmented workflows — agentic coding tools, prompt/context engineering, AI-driven testing — and can demonstrate the most complex thing you've shipped this way
- Product-company experience: you've built for end users with daily stakes, and you think in outcomes
- Strong debugging, analytical, and problem-solving skills; unit testing and code coverage discipline
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
Nice to have
- Forward-deployed, consulting, or founding-engineer experience — dropped into a customer or problem space and shipped
- AWS (EC2, ECS), Docker, CI/CD pipelines, Redis or similar caching
- SaaS or multi-tenant systems; Golang exposure
- DevOps and security best practices awareness
What You'll Gain
- Ownership of flagship builds on a live, growing SaaS platform — your projects, your outcomes, visible to the whole company
- Direct working partnership with the Head of Product and Head of Engineering
- A defining role in how AI-native engineering is practiced at a product company that takes it seriously
- Fast growth in a high-velocity startup with a clear product vision
How to Apply
Send the following — applications without all three will not be reviewed:
- Your project story. One page or less: a project you led end-to-end through significant ambiguity — what you shipped, how you led the team, and what measurably changed. Specifics over adjectives.
- Your AI workflow. A short description of how AI is embedded in your actual engineering workflow today — tools, techniques, and the most complex thing you've shipped with it.
- Your resume.
Skills
Java, Angular (2+), React.js