About Playground

Playground is working to make excellent child care accessible to all. Playground has built best in class software to manage all aspects of running a child care business. Playground has raised millions of dollars in funding, has several Statewide contracts, and is working with thousands of schools across the country. Our founders were recently recognized by Forbes as 30 under 30, and our work has been recognized across the country.

Playground is at an inflection point, growing at a quick pace, and we are looking to expand our engineering team as quickly as possible. Playground is a team of owners who are not afraid to dive into large, complex projects.

Job Description

As part of Playground's engineering team, you will be responsible for building new products from zero-to-one across the full stack, from the APIs and backend services that power our platform, to the frontend experiences that delight our users. You'll play a critical role in shaping the future of child care, working directly on products relied on by thousands of child care businesses, agencies, and government organizations.

This role spans the entire stack. You'll own projects end-to-end: designing and scaling core backend systems, building performant and maintainable frontend features, and everything in between. We're looking for self-starters who thrive on ownership, operate with urgency, and are excited to use modern AI coding tools to dramatically increase their leverage and output.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with a cross-functional team to design and build features end to end with a strong focus on customer needs and product impact
• Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code across the stack — React and TypeScript on the frontend, Node.js and Express on the backend.
• Lead the design and delivery of mission-critical backend APIs and services, with a focus on performance, security, and long-term maintainability.
• Build and improve frontend features in our web app, contributing to a best-in-class user experience for thousands of child care businesses
• Participate in code reviews to maintain code quality and share knowledge across the team.
• Interact directly with customers to gather feedback and understand their needs.
• Proactively identify technical debt and drive improvements across both frontend and backend architecture.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in full stack or software development, with meaningful exposure to both frontend and backend technologies.