Team Lead (ReactJS / Node.js)

Playbook is a leading creator platform for fitness, health, and wellness. The company operates as a remote-first, product-driven team in the fitness tech space, aiming to help fitness creators build sustainable businesses and enable users to live healthier lives.

• 6+ years of professional software development experience focused on full-stack JavaScript/TypeScript with a proven track record in shipping production web applications end-to-end.
• 1+ year of direct team leadership experience managing or formally leading a small engineering team (2+ people), including 1:1s, feedback, and accountability for team delivery.
• Experience with React.js and modern frontend patterns to build responsive, user-friendly interfaces with attention to detail and performance.
• Experience with Node.js, including designing GraphQL schemas and understanding resolvers, dataloaders, and API structure for maintainability.
• Advanced TypeScript proficiency, comfortable writing complex types, generics, and conditional types.
• Demonstrated ability to facilitate team decisions by gathering input, communicating trade-offs clearly, and driving alignment under ambiguity.
• Experience working with relational databases (PostgreSQL preferred), including schema design, query optimisation, and reasoning about consistency and performance.
• Active daily use of AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, or similar) for development, debugging, and problem-solving.
• Strong communication skills in English, comfortable working in a remote, cross-timezone team and collaborating asynchronously with engineers and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to have:

• Experience with Node.js frameworks: Next.js, NestJS.
• Familiarity with MVVM or similar architectural patterns.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and improving observability and logging.
• Familiarity with AWS services such as Lambda, Step Functions, SNS/SQS, DynamoDB, and ECS.
• Experience building or integrating payment and subscription flows (e.g., Stripe, billing systems, in-app purchases).
• Experience working in a startup or fast-growing product company.

• Lead, mentor, and grow a small team of engineers (typically 3–5 people), including holding regular 1:1s and giving clear and timely feedback.
• Create a psychologically safe, inclusive team environment where engineers feel ownership, can speak up, and resolve conflict constructively.
• Support performance management by coaching top performers and addressing underperformance directly and constructively.
• Participate actively in hiring, including interviews and technical assessments.
• Balance short-term execution with longer-term technical sustainability, protecting the team from unnecessary scope creep while keeping delivery predictable.
• Act as the primary engineering point of contact for Product, Design, and other cross-functional partners.
• Translate product requirements into well-scoped technical solutions and communicate trade-offs clearly.
• Contribute to Engineering Requirement Documents (ERDs) defining data models, API contracts, and integration points before implementation.
• Remain technically active by contributing to features across the stack (Node.js and ReactJS), participating in design and code reviews, and setting a high bar for code quality.
• Lead architectural direction within the team, ensuring alignment with broader organizational practices and long-term maintainability.
• Proactively identify and address technical debt impacting team velocity or system reliability.
• Take responsibility for team-level outcomes, drive systemic improvements, and resolve blockers.
• Champion the active use of AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Codex, or similar) within the team to enhance productivity and problem-solving.