Principal Engineer Job Description

What we're building

SageReport is an AI platform for school psychologists.

The core product generates psychological evaluation reports from source documents—assessments, interviews, observations, student history. We support 70+ assessment types. The output goes into a rich text editor with AI chat for revisions.

We also do IEP generation, an AI assistant with access to a school psychology knowledge base, and we're building toward full case management—eventually covering nearly everything a school psych needs in one place. 

Why this matters: There are 160,000 school-based clinicians in the US, all drowning in paperwork and unsupported by technology. We're giving them their time back so they can focus on the kids they serve. We’re improving paperwork compliance to potentially save districts millions in legal exposure. There is currently no direct competition.

We're giving them that time back—which means more capacity for the students who need support. We’re improving paperwork compliance to save districts millions. There is currently no direct competition.

Where we are

We're pre-launch, about two months out. Here's our traction:

  • One of our testers posted about us on Facebook on a Friday evening—not an influencer, just a school psych who loved it. 200+ signups for early access within 4 hours. Within a week we met with and onboarded 60 testers from that single post.

  • We have a partner district with 55 school psychologists. When we presented and asked who wanted early access even with bugs, 96%+ said “now”. Zero said never.

  • We ran a standard product-market fit survey with early testers ("How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?"). 93% said "very disappointed." The benchmark for strong PMF is 40%. The Net Promoter Score from early testers is 87.

  • We regularly receive outreach from testers saying the product is “life-changing” and “mind-blowing” and that it's giving them back time they desperately needed.

We're not doing outbound marketing. We have a placeholder website. Demand is finding us.

We believe we're ahead of emerging competition, and we're focused on keeping that lead.

The role

This is our first engineering hire. A founding engineer role.

The technical side is currently one person. We need a senior engineer in US timezones to share the load, extend coverage, and make sure the technical side of the company isn't a single point of failure. This isn't "join a team." You'd be helping build the team.

Day-to-day:

We're async-first. Slack, Linear, PRs. One or two sync calls per week (1-2 hours) unless something urgent comes up, likely more with product side following launch. 80-90% of your day should be focused building. The rest is communication, code review, occasionally handling support issues.

No formal sprints. You take the next important thing, you ship it, you move on.

For bigger changes, we write short design docs: something you can put together in a day, then async back-and-forth to sanity-check scope and approach. We're not looking for 22-step task breakdowns. We want to know what's affected, what the risks are, and that we've thought it through. For smaller things, just do it, maybe a quick Slack message if there are real tradeoffs to weigh.

Early days vs. later:

In your first weeks, you'll be reading code, getting familiar with the system, and finding your footing. We won't have a formal onboarding curriculum, you'll be able to orient yourself and identify where you can start contributing. Once familiar, we'll have more structure and rhythm. You'll be building features and fixing bugs in focused stretches. Still lightweight on process, but with clearer patterns.

What we're looking for

Experience and disposition:

  • 10-15 years of experience. You've worked on enough projects to have good judgment about tradeoffs.

  • You've been remote for a while and it works for you.

  • You're autonomous. You can take a problem, figure out the approach, and drive it to completion without a lot of oversight.

  • You close loops. When you pick something up, you see it through—tested, deployed, communicated.

  • You're technically broad. You understand how things actually work—auth, databases, networking, performance, security—not just how to use the abstractions. We're a small team working with sensitive data in schools; we take security seriously and need someone who does too.

  • You're steady. Startups are unpredictable, but you can handle stress and don't add to the chaos. We can get tired, but the vibes are good. 

On AI tooling:

We use AI heavily in development. It's not a gimmick, it's core to how we move quickly with a small team. Working with AI tooling requires ongoing attention and adaptation, but we believe it significantly accelerates what's possible. We expect any new team member to be comfortable working this way. If you're skeptical or prefer to avoid AI-assisted development, that's a legitimate choice, but we're probably not the right fit.

Nice to have:

  • TypeScript/JavaScript experience

  • React experience

  • Comfort with CSS (though not absolutely necessary)

  • Firebase/Firestore (you'll pick it up quickly if you're solid generally

What probably won't work

The following is intentionally direct, because it saves everyone time:

If you prefer detailed specs before starting work. We write lightweight design docs for bigger efforts, but you won't get comprehensive requirements handed to you. If you're most comfortable in environments with well-defined workflows and clear handoffs, our pace will feel uncomfortable.

If you're not sure remote works for you. Fully remote isn't for everyone. Some people thrive, some struggle with isolation or self-direction. If you haven't done it before, this probably isn't the role to find out. We need someone who already knows they do well in this setup.

Compensation

Salary: $200,000–250,000 depending on experience, with a ramp structure as we scale revenue. There is an option to shift weight from salary to equity if you believe in the product and this is preferred. Happy to discuss specifics.

We're an early-stage company. We're asking you to take somewhat below-market cash early, with the gap made up in equity and upside. We're being upfront about this because we think transparency matters more than optimizing our negotiating position.

Equity: 2.5%, with room to negotiate based on experience and your cash/equity preference. Standard 4-year vest, 1-year cliff.

Benefits: Health/Vision/Dental + Paid Vacation - We're building out a proper benefits package. It's not fully formalized yet, but it will be. Happy to discuss where we're headed.

Location: Fully remote. US timezones required.

Tech stack

  • Frontend: React, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS

  • Backend: Firebase (Firestore, Auth, Functions, Storage), Node.js

Modern but not exotic. If you're an experienced web developer, you'll be productive quickly.

Why this might be worth it

If you've spent years at companies where you had less ownership than you wanted, less autonomy than you could handle, and less meaning in the work than you hoped for, this might be what you're looking for.

We're small. You'd have real impact. The mission is tangible: school teams are overwhelmed and at-risk kids fall through the cracks as a result. We're helping fix that.

It's also demanding. We're a small team. If something breaks, we fix it. If something needs building, we build it. If you want structure and predictability, this isn't it. That said, we also have kids and understand that life happens and family comes first. 

But if you want to help build something that matters, with people who respect your autonomy and your time, let's talk.

How to apply

Email jobs@sagereport.com with:

  1. A bit about your background and why this interests you

  2. A link to GitHub, LinkedIn, or whatever best shows your work

  3. Any questions you have for us

We're not going to make you do a leetcode test. We'll have a conversation, look at some work together, and figure out if this is a good fit.