TL;DR
Mantel is building AI agents to transform the $500B US home services industry. We’re a super lean and fast-growing startup based in NYC and we’re looking for a Senior/Staff Software Engineer to be our Tech Lead.
About the company and role
Selling home services is broken. Contractors juggle clunky tools. Homeowners are paralyzed by expensive, confusing decisions. That’s why we built Mantel. Our flagship product, SmartQuote, brings AI directly into the sales conversation—generating custom quotes, answering technical questions in real-time, and automating follow-ups. We've grown 750% YoY and already serve top contractors across the country, including the largest garage door company in the United States.
We're two MIT alums—Kevin (CTO) founded and exited a YC-backed startup (acquired by Lyft), and Zac (CEO) went to Harvard Law but found his calling in tech—building a merry band of exceptional builders in Manhattan.
Our goal? Become the preeminent sales software for the entire home services industry, where each contractor can create the most user-friendly, personalized, and convenient shopping experience for homeowners. Think of it as the Shopify for the trades.
You'll work directly with Kevin to own our technical direction and mentor our engineering team of 3. You'll make architecture decisions that matter, ship AI-powered features daily, and take on more ownership than most roles offer in five years. We're offering 1%+ equity because we want you to feel, and be, truly invested.
What you'll do
- Own the entire codebase and drive our technical architecture. We want you to be a true technical lead, which means making the key architectural decisions that will shape how our product and software grows.
- Build and ship AI-powered features. Recent examples: we just shipped an AI agent that personalizes proposals based on homeowner interests. Next up: an AI agent that’s personalized to each salesperson’s tone and style and helps them build proposals from scratch and respond to customers on their behalf. You'll also build new AI-powered shopping experiences for homeowners—like an agent that walks them through choosing between heat pump options based on their home specs and budget.
- Mentor 3 engineers and help establish the engineering culture that will define Mantel for years. We already use AI extensively in our development process (we ship faster than teams 3x our size), but we expect you to push us to new heights as AI tools evolve weekly.
- Talk to customers in the field - contractors and homeowners. The best product decisions come from understanding the problem firsthand. You'll ride along on sales calls and watch people use your code.
- Ship meaningful code every day. We move fast. You'll own projects end-to-end from design to deployment.
- Scale backend services (Python/Django) as we grow. If you have frontend skills, you'll ship web products too.
What we're looking for
You have:
- 5+ years building and scaling production systems
- Technical leadership experience - you've mentored engineers or led technical projects
- Extremely strong technical skills - we need someone we can trust to own the entire codebase
- Python proficiency and backend chops
- Bonus: hands-on AI/LLM experience, Django/PostgreSQL, AWS, full-stack capabilities, startup experience
You are:
- Obsessive about ownership. By default, you own 100% of everything you touch. You follow threads to their logical conclusion without others asking you to. You don't do partial fixes.
- An independent thinker. You make sound decisions with minimal oversight. You balance moving fast with building things that last.
- Driven by learning rate. You believe startups win in the 0→1 phase by understanding customers better than anyone else, not by mindless execution.
- Genuinely excited about AI. You've built with LLMs at work or in your own time. You have opinions about what works and what doesn't, and you always stay on the bleeding edge of AI technology as it continuously evolves and transforms our industry.
- A Future Founder. You want the challenges and opportunities of building from the ground up, and want to come to a place to learn how to do it better than anyone else.
We want someone who brings obsessive focus to everything they do. Kevin spends more time practicing first-person shooters than actually playing them. Zac started his first company in high school. What's your thing?
Why join us
Join a merry band of exceptional builders. MIT CS and Harvard Law alums, exited founders, seasoned operators. Kevin previously founded and sold a company backed by a16z, GV, Tencent, and YC, then spent 4 years as an EM at Lyft. We're kind, ambitious, and obsessed with building something legendary.
Take a massive swing. We're going after a $500B market with broken, legacy tooling. The contractors we work with run multi-million dollar businesses. Homeowners are making some of the most expensive purchases of their lives. The impact is real and immediate.
Own the future. You'll make decisions that shape our technical foundation for years. This role is a launching pad—either to a future leadership position at Mantel, or to building your own company someday.
Work in-person in Manhattan's Financial District. We believe the best ideas come from being together. The vibe is fun and fast-paced—we joke around over meals, we have monthly team night-outs, and we ship every day.
Build something that matters. As a bonus, you'll help accelerate the adoption of energy-efficient home systems across the country.
What we offer
- Salary: $180k - $220k
- Equity: Part of ~10% pool across our first 10 employees (1%+ for this role)
- Growth: This role is your launchpad. Learn how to build a category-defining company, then use those skills to lead engineering at Mantel or build your own startup someday
- Culture: Lunch and dinner at the office, monthly team night-outs, and a team that genuinely enjoys working together
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- PTO: As an owner, take what you need
Technical Interview Process
- 60-minute live Python programming (no leetcode, no AI, search engines allowed)
- 60-minute data modeling and system design
- Take-home project - build something real with AI
- On-site with the team - spend the day working together and shipping a real feature
- Offer
About the Founders
Kevin Wang, Co-Founder & CTO
MIT S.B. & M.Eng Computer Science, Tau Beta Pi
Started as an algorithmic trader at Jump Trading, one of the best High Frequency Trading companies in the world. Founded Kamcord in 2012, backed by YC, a16z, GV, Initialized Capital, SV Angel, and Tencent. Sold to Lyft. Spent 4 years as an EM on the Rider App before returning to building companies from the ground up.
Zac Dearing, Co-Founder & CEO
MIT S.B. Economics | Harvard Law School J.D.
Started as a middle school math teacher through Teach For America. Joined McKinsey, then Amazon as a PM. Experienced the pain of buying HVAC firsthand while helping his mom replace her AC. Thus Mantel was born.
Top Skills
What We Do
We are building the AI headhunter for startups.
Recruitment is one of the few domains where we can build agents that improve the quality of the outcome, not just do things cheaper and faster than the status quo
Recruitment agencies charge US companies $200B a year but have an NPS worse than healthcare.
We are going to maximize the number of people doing work they find fulfilling and that starts with fixing how companies connect with the best talent.
About our founders: Edmund was a recruiter for 7 years, he placed engineer #1 at Brex and might be the only recruiter you’ve met who can code.
Li was the first employee at Vitable Health (YC S20), he has a pathological need to ship fast with exquisite design taste.
Why Work With Us
We’re tackling a $200B domain that humans suck at (trust me, I did the job for 7 years)
To win we must build an autonomous agent with taste (not another co-pilot)
The mission? More meaningful work for the maximum number of people
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