Full-Stack Developer

This is an early, high-ownership role. You'll be a versatile, hands-on builder who can cover a wide range of work across the stack, especially building clean, trustworthy user-facing interfaces as well as the systems behind them. You'll work directly with the founders to turn our product specification and technical flows into a working MVP that feels simple, robust and trustworthy. You'll help define what "good" looks like technically, make pragmatic trade-offs, and ship.

In this role you will:

• Own the MVP build end-to-end across front-end, back-end, database and deployment.
• Build core user flows for a transactional marketplace, including all relevant states and edge cases (errors, cancellations, refunds/disputes, timeouts, failed payments and support triggers).
• Write clean, maintainable code and establish lightweight testing and review habits so the MVP stays reliable as we iterate.
• Implement authentication, user permissions, and basic administration tooling.
• Build and document APIs and data models that can scale as the product expands.
• Integrate payment and transactional components (e.g., Stripe) with clean handling of failure states and user communications.
• Set up and maintain the engineering foundations: environments, deployment, CI/CD, logging, and basic monitoring.
• Work in a tight loop with the founders on prioritisation, trade-offs, and delivery milestones.
• Contribute to product and UX decisions where helpful, especially around clarity and trust in high-risk user journeys.

What you'll work on in the first 6-12 months

Examples of concrete work you can expect:

• Building the first production-ready web MVP, with a clean architecture and clear path to iteration.
• Translating our existing flows and requirements into reliable, well-structured front-end screens and back-end services.
• Implementing the most important transactional journeys: listing, buying/reselling, payments, verification/validation checks, and post-transaction states.
• Establishing the first version of our technical stack and patterns (repo structure, component patterns, API conventions, database migrations, testing approach).
• Setting up secure, disciplined handling of data and access controls, with a focus on trust and reducing risk.
• Working with the founders to ship in short cycles (weekly demos, measurable milestones), improving speed and quality over time., * Any experience with marketplaces, payments, trust & safety, or high-risk flows (refunds, disputes, chargebacks, etc.)., * Which technologies have you used professionally? (React, Next.js, Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL). Please list the ones you have used in production systems.
• Please provide links to GitHub repositories or live projects you have built (production applications preferred).
• How to apply

As part of the process, all applicants are required to complete a short structured application form:

Link to the form: https://forms.gle/LBAWVmDKfU1RBqHS6

The form will ask you to provide:

Links to 2-3 relevant projects (GitHub, case studies, or live products) showing end-to-end delivery.

Do you have experience in Python?, Experience & craft

• 5+ years' experience as a Full-Stack Engineer (or equivalent) building customer-facing web products.
• Strong front-end skills with modern JavaScript and a major framework (React; Next.js strongly preferred).
• Strong back-end skills (Node.js / TypeScript preferred; Python acceptable if you're strong and can ship quickly).
• Strong database fundamentals (Postgres preferred) and comfort designing clean schemas and queries.
• Comfort building end-to-end flows, not just isolated components.

Breadth & ownership (essential)

• Comfortable wearing multiple hats in an early-stage environment, building UI, backend services, data models, and deployment foundations.
• Strong frontend capability: you can implement product-quality UI (not just rough prototypes) with good judgement around usability and trust.
• You are proactive and self-directed: you don't wait for perfect specs; you clarify assumptions, document decisions, and move.
• You don't need to be a visual designer, but you should be comfortable building and iterating the UI directly, using a clean component approach and strong product judgement.

Domain relevance

• Experience building transactional products where users pay, reserve, book and you must handle failures, retries, and support escalation.
• Good instincts around edge cases, failure states, and building systems that reduce user confusion and support burden.
• Familiarity with two-sided platforms or marketplaces (buyers/sellers, guests/hosts, etc.) through a role or meaningful projects.

Ways of working

• A clear product mindset: you can reason about trade-offs and ship the minimum that is safe, reliable, and testable.
• Strong ownership: you can run with problems without needing heavy management.
• Comfortable working in an early-stage environment: incomplete information, changing priorities, and close founder collaboration.
• High standards around ethics, transparency, and trust: no dark patterns; clear user expectations when money and risk are involved.

Practical

• London-based (or able to commute) and able to join in-person working sessions 2-3 days/week.
• Right to work in the UK., * Experience in ticketing, live events, travel, fintech or other time-sensitive, high-trust sectors.
• Experience with Stripe or similar payment processors, including refunds/chargebacks/disputes.
• Familiarity with AWS and practical deployment patterns (Vercel + AWS, containers, etc.).
• Experience setting engineering foundations as an early hire (CI/CD, logging, testing discipline, security basics).
• Comfort with product/design collaboration (able to implement clean UI and suggest improvements)., Any experience with marketplaces, payments, trust & safety, or high-risk flows (refunds, disputes, chargebacks, etc.).

Experience:

• Full-Stack Software Engineering: 5 years (required)

Pulled from the full job description

• Flexitime
• Employee stock ownership plan
• Work from home

About SwapTix The secondary ticket market has become complicated and, for many people, unfair. Customers face hidden fees, confusing policies and uncertainty when they need to change plans or resell tickets. SwapTix is building a fair, transparent and safe platform for secondary ticket resale. Our aim is to create a clear, trustworthy experience when real money, access and time-sensitive events are involved. We are currently pre-launch, with our legal, financial and technical foundations already in place. We are now hiring our first engineering hire on a full-time basis to work directly with the founders and build the first working version of the product. SwapTix is currently part of City, University of London's CityVentures incubator and is based at Venture Space.