Liven Labs
Founding Software Engineer - AI Team

📍 Hybrid (Auckland) / Remote | 🕒 Full-time

Hey, we’re Liven Labs 👋

We’re a purpose-driven EdTech startup on a mission to empower learners to shape their own futures and thrive in a rapidly evolving world.

We believe education is entering a new era—where connection, guidance, and support are just as important as content. That’s why we’re building a platform that brings together the best of AI and human-centred design to support students through one of life’s most formative transitions.

We're early-stage, moving fast, and looking for thoughtful, ambitious people to join our founding team.

✨ The role

We’re on the hunt for a Founding Software Engineer to help bring our vision to life. You’ll play a critical role in shaping the technical foundation of our platform, contributing to architecture decisions, building out our product infrastructure, and enabling AI-powered experiences that are thoughtful, secure, and scalable.

You’ll work closely with our CPO, product designers, and early engineers to turn ideas into reality—from prototypes to production-ready services. This is a high-impact, hands-on role for someone who enjoys building things that matter, and wants to grow with the company as we scale.

💡 What you’ll be doing

• Designing and developing modern, scalable web applications using a contemporary tech stack.

• Building and maintaining our application architecture and cloud infrastructure.

• Implementing secure, privacy-aware systems that can support AI features and integrations.

• Working closely with Product and Design to co-create features and experiences.

• Helping shape our engineering culture, practices, and roadmap.

• Exploring and integrating AI/ML tools and services that enhance the learning experience.

• Contributing to our early-stage technical strategy and product evolution.

🧠 What we’re looking for

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong foundations in modern web development (e.g. React, Next.js, Node.js).

• Experience designing APIs, data models, and distributed systems within cloud-native infrastructure (e.g. AWS, GCP, serverless).

• A deep understanding of building secure, privacy-conscious, user-first applications.

• Practical experience with GenAI architectures—such as LLMs, RAG, vector databases, memory/knowledge systems, and prompt engineering.

• An interest in building intelligent, adaptive systems and working across disciplines to solve complex problems.

• A collaborative, proactive mindset and comfort with ambiguity—you thrive in early-stage environments and enjoy building from 0–1.

🌱 Bonus experience

• Experience in EdTech or adjacent mission-driven sectors.

• DevOps, observability, or infrastructure-as-code expertise.

• Familiarity with agile and lean startup ways of working.

Why join Liven Labs?

• Build something that genuinely makes a difference in people’s lives.

• Work with smart, humble people who care deeply about education.

• Help shape the foundations of our tech, product, and culture.

• Remote-first, flexible work culture that trusts you to do your best work.

• Competitive salary and space to grow with the company.

• Extra day off for your birthday and a home office allowance to help you get set up.

How to apply

Sound like you? We’d love to hear from you. Send us your CV, GitHub or portfolio (if relevant), and a note about why you’re excited by this opportunity. We care more about how you think than ticking every box.