Associate Technical Lead - Node/React

Associate Technical Lead – Node/React

Description

About Gapstars

About Gapstars

Gapstars is a Netherlands-based software development services provider that builds remote, agile teams in Sri Lanka and Portugal for innovative tech companies. Today, we are home to 300+ TechStars and innovative minds, turning scalable software into performance products that shape the future. Our partners are highly ambitious tech companies that are looking to conquer their respective markets.

About the Role
We're looking for a Full-Stack Developer who is technically sharp, ownership-driven, and genuinely excited about using AI tools as a primary part of how they work. You'll contribute to our platform migration, and help raise the bar on how we build software, including bringing your AI-first working methods to the broader team. This is not a role for someone who wants to be told what to build. We expect seniors to reason about tradeoffs, challenge assumptions, and take end-to-end ownership of features and systems.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain full-stack features in our Next.js/Node.js platform
Contribute to the migration from our PHP/Symfony legacy system toward our modern stack
Collaborate with UX/UI designers to ship high-quality user experiences
Write clean, tested, and scalable code, and hold the bar in code reviews
Use AI-assisted development tools daily to accelerate your own output and improve code quality
Share AI workflows, patterns, and tooling knowledge actively with the team. Run demos, document approaches, and help colleagues level up
Participate in agile ceremonies, sprint planning, and delivery processes
Take ownership of system reliability, performance, and operational concerns within your domain

The Role

Associate Technical Lead - Node/React

Requirements

Hard Skills
Full Stack Development

Node.js: 3-5 years of relevant experience
TypeScript: strong proficiency; you default to it
React and Next.js: 3-5 years; you've shipped production apps, not just side projects
RESTful APIs: design and consumption experience
Databases: proficient in MongoDB, MySQL, or PostgreSQL; understands query performance
Git: fluent in collaborative workflows, branching strategies, and code review culture
Unit Testing: experience writing meaningful tests with Jest or Vitest
AWS: hands-on experience with core services (EC2, S3, CloudFront, Aurora/RDS or equivalent)

AI-Augmented Development

You use AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, or equivalent) as a primary productivity layer, not as autocomplete, but for architecture exploration, code generation, refactoring, debugging, and test generation
You have a clear mental model of when AI tools help and when they get in the way, you're not blindly prompting, you're directing
You are comfortable working with AI-generated codebases: reviewing, correcting, extending, and owning the output
Knowledge sharing: you actively document and share AI workflows with teammates; you're comfortable being the go-to person for practical AI adoption in the team

Nice to Have, Hard Skills

Agent development: experience building AI agents, sub-agents, or multi-step agent workflows (e.g., using Claude API, OpenAI, LangChain, LangGraph, AWS Bedrock, Kanva js, or similar frameworks)
Skill/tool design: experience designing reusable AI tools, prompt libraries, or workflow templates for use in agent frameworks
Integration testing: Playwright or Cypress
Familiarity with Effect.ts
Social APIs: Meta Marketing API, TikTok Ads API, Google Ads API
Adobe stack: InDesign, After Effects (relevant for our templating product domain)
Figma: able to inspect and work from design files
CI/CD: GitHub Actions or equivalent
Backend-for-Frontend concept: tRPC, ts-rest, Zodios, or Effect RPC
Docker and containers: comfortable with containerization in development and production
PHP and Symfony: useful for contributing to legacy system migration
DevOps: multi-domain infrastructure, single repo setups, cloud security fundamentals

Soft Skills

Problem-solving: strong analytical skills; you diagnose before you build
Adaptability: genuinely comfortable with evolving requirements and a shifting tech landscape
Attention to detail: precision in both code and communication
Proactive attitude: you surface problems and propose solutions without waiting to be asked
AI enabler mindset: you naturally bring teammates along, sharing what's working, documenting
patterns, lowering the barrier for others to adopt AI tools
Project management: familiar with agile, sprint planning, and async collaboration
Time management: can manage multiple workstreams and communicate proactively about blockers

"Gapstars is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on race, national origin, gender, disability, or age. Your personal information collected during the application process is handled following our privacy policy and used exclusively for recruitment and hiring purposes only"