Full Stack Engineer

Job description

About Odyssey: K-12 education is one of the most consequential determinants of a child’s future — and many families have had limited ability to shape how and where their child learns. Education Savings Account (ESA) programs are changing that. One of the fastest-growing public education initiatives in the U.S., they give states the ability to put education funding directly in the hands of families, who can then choose the learning experiences that best fit their child — from schools and tutors to therapy, curriculum, and technology. But once these policies are signed into law, states face an enormous operational challenge. They must stand up entirely new programs, manage the secure and compliant flow of public funds, approve and monitor thousands of vendors, support families at scale, and prevent fraud — all while delivering a high-quality user experience. That’s where Odyssey comes in. We partner with state agencies to design, launch, and operate ESA and grant programs on their behalf. We provide the technology, program operations, vendor ecosystem, and family experience that make these programs actually work in the real world. Today, we operate across 6 states, and our platform powers programs serving 200,000+ students and over $1B in education funding — and we’re just getting started. Most recently, we launched the Texas Education Savings Account (EFA) program — the biggest day-one ESA launch in the country — which has already received nearly 200,000 applications. It’s the kind of moment that captures exactly what we’re building toward: programs that work at scale, from day one, when it matters most. We’re backed by respected investors, including a16z and Tusk Venture Partners, and we’re building the team that will take us to the next stage. Odyssey sits at the intersection of GovTech, EdTech, and FinTech. We are a public-sector operator, a technology company, and a program delivery partner all at once. The work we do is civic infrastructure — it determines whether families can access life-changing educational opportunities. WHY THIS WORK IS DIFFERENT We’re in the weeds with state partners, internally with our product teams, and turning ambiguous policy into real systems that families depend on. This means building a platform that meets each state’s configuration needs while being flexible enough to support all customers. We are not building be-spoke software! If you want a highly structured environment, this will feel uncomfortable. If you want ownership, speed, and problems that actually matter, you’ll feel right at home. About the Role: As a Full Stack Engineer at Odyssey, you’ll build the core technology behind our platform. You’ll work across the stack on program eligibility systems, education fund ledgers, and a marketplace that enables schools and vendors to accept tuition and service payments. This role focuses on building full-stack systems, including scalable services, APIs, data models, frontend UI, and internal tools that support families, schools, providers, and operational teams as the platform grows. We’re looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, and experience building from 0-1 across the stack. By joining our team, you will leverage your skills to make a direct impact on the quality and accessibility of K-12 education across the United States. What You’ll Do: - Own features end-to-end across the stack from ideation and technical design trough implementation, deployment, and iteration. - Build and ship 0-1 products and systems, turning ambiguous ideas into scalable, production ready solutions. - Architect, plan and develop beautiful functional experiences for customers using TypeScript, AWS Lambda, Next.js, and other frameworks and languages. - Design, write, and execute tests to ensure the robustness and reliability of our applications. - Design and implement sophisticated database models considering scalability and performance. - Develop and maintain APIs for widespread public and internal use, enhancing our mobile applications and various systems. - Drive the continuous improvement of Odyssey’s Marketplace platform in collaboration with the product team. - Collaborate with cross-functional teams including product and design to identify needs, formulate solutions, and bridge product gaps. - Make pragmatic tradeoffs between speed and scalability, with a strong bias toward shipping and learning quickly. - Foster transparent communication within the team, sharing both challenges and successes openly. - Contribute to system design, platform management, code reviews, and capacity planning as well as overall architectural decisions to help evolve systems as we scale from early-stage foundations. - Take full ownership of your work in production, including monitoring, debugging, and continuous improvement. - Operate with a high degree of autonomy while proactively identifying gaps, risks, and opportunities. About You: - 3-5+ years of experience in software development. - Proficient in TypeScript for building robust, scalable applications. - Experience with early to mid-stage tech startups and enthusiasm for startup growth and dynamics. - You’ve built or significantly contributed to 0-1 products or features. - Comfort with ambiguity and turning loosely defined problems into clear, actionable plans. - An Entrepreneurial mindset - thinking like an owner not just an implementer. You care about what you’re building and why. - Strong communication skills, comfortable pitching new approaches and concepts to the team. - Solid understanding and experience in Agile practices, with flexibility to adapt to evolving project needs. - Track record of shipping quickly and iterating based on feedback; taking a bias towards action across the entire SDLC. Preferred Skills: - Experience with building scalable software using AWS technologies. - Experience in highly regulated industries such as fintech, govtech or healthtech - Experience with double-entry ledgers, payments (Stripe payments a plus), and money movement. - Experience owning services end-to-end including maintenance of infrastructure. - Familiarity with Terraform, CI/CD and observability tools Additional Details: - This role is a hybrid position out of our NYC office in Tribeca. - Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. - We believe that everyone at Odyssey should be compensated fairly. We set our salary bands based on compensation data from hundreds of companies at our stage. The salary range for this role is $160,000 - $180,000 depending on experience, interview performance and location. - Odyssey benefits include Medical/Dental/Vision plan(s), health services, short term disability, unlimited PTO and more. Our Commitment to Equal Opportunity Employment: Odyssey is an equal opportunity employer. Reasonable accommodations are available upon request.