---
title: 'Full Stack Software Engineer - Community at Substack'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/full-stack-software-engineer-community-substack-san-francisco-3egnsnq51z9p'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-06'
---

# Full Stack Software Engineer - Community at Substack

- **Company:** Substack
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-08-11
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substack/46b21719-a949-44ab-8b0f-8baa1c7f0392

## Job description

Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the brightest, most interesting, and most creative people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. The terms of our culture should not be set by gate-keeping legacy media or chaos-fueling social media, but by the people who actually make and participate in that culture. Substack’s model, based on direct subscriptions, has fueled an explosion of independent publishing. It empowers creators with economic autonomy, creative ownership, and a direct connection to their most engaged audiences.

## About the Community Team

We’re working on the next frontier of products and features to help Substack creators connect and manage their community. This ranges from DMs to Substack Chat to entirely new products.

Our team brainstorms with the CEO, Chris Best, and each engineer contributes ideas for new products and UI/UX upgrades to existing products. Ultimately those ideas become internal prototypes, and then become products shipped to our millions of users.

We’re a small team of generalists, so we especially value an interest in working across our tech stack, willingness to prototype, and product-mindedness.

Responsibilities:

- Build frontend and backend (and sometimes mobile) features that help creators manage their communities, and users connect more deeply within these communities.
- Collaborate with designers, writers, support staff, and many others. From product concept and research to implementation and deployment, we expect you to own your work and operate autonomously.
- We work with TypeScript, especially Node/Express and React, and Postgres. It’s helpful if you know these technologies already; if not, we’ll be excited to help you learn.
- Shift: Tuesday to Saturday

Requirements:

- At least 7+ years of software engineering experience.
- Independent and autonomous. We’re too small to micromanage, and expect that every person at the company owns their work and can be a leader.
- Hold yourself and others to a high standard when working on production systems.
- Take pride in building elegant and delightful product experiences. Substack works best when it gets out of the way so writers can focus on writing and connecting with their readers.
- Enjoy collaboration with a diverse group of thinkers while bringing our own unique experience and background to the team.
- Believe in Substack’s mission to build a better business model for writing.
- Experience working with ML technology would be beneficial.

Experience at a fast-growing startup or working on a high-performing growth team is not required, but is a plus.

Substack's compensation package includes a market competitive salary, equity for all full time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation salary range for this role is $140,000 - $260,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Substack is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you.

Please see our Privacy Notice for details regarding Substack's collection and use of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UjmY1acxnd27iIde83PxR7XdecR29aIyfkkmEOwAMGY/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.a0wuzmt3mjmm.

## About Substack

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Substack provides a platform for independent writers, podcasters, and creators to publish, build audiences, and earn revenue directly through paid subscriptions.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA (with a new office in New York City)
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Chris Best (CEO), Jairaj Sethi (CTO), Hamish McKenzie (CWO)

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Media, Publishing, Creator Economy, SaaS
- Target customers: Individual writers, podcasters, video creators, independent publishers, media companies, experts, and educators (B2C and B2B)
- Mission or purpose statement: "To build a new economic engine for culture — empowering writers, creators, and publishers to own their work, own their audience, and earn directly from their ideas."

## Products & Services
- **Publishing Platform**: A full-featured CMS and writing tool designed for longform content, with support for posts, newsletters, scheduling, and media embedding.
- **Substack App**: A mobile and web app that connects readers with creators, featuring discovery tools like recommendations, Notes, trending topics, and leaderboards.
- **Native Podcasting**: Built-in recording studio and live video capabilities, with automatic distribution to Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, including premium episode options.
- **Payments & Subscription Management**: Handles all billing, subscriber management, and revenue tools (welcome sequences, win-back campaigns, analytics). Creators keep 90% of revenue minus credit card fees.
- **Community Tools**: Subscriber chats, comment threads, and moderation features to turn publications into communities.
- **Substack Defender**: Legal support program providing publishers access to legal fees, advice, and pre-publication review for defamation, trademark, and copyright issues.
- **Network Discovery**: Built-in growth engine where more than half of new subscribers come from within Substack’s network, including recommendations and collaborations.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (last raised $100M in Series C in July 2025)
- **Key Metric**: Over 5 million paid subscriptions across the network; more than 30% of paid subscriptions come from within Substack’s network; tens of millions of posts discovered daily in the app.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz, BOND, The Chernin Group (TCG); part of Y Combinator’s winter 2018 batch.
- **Growth Signals**: Raised $100M Series C in July 2025; team has grown to over 100 people across the US, Canada, and UK; opened a new New York City office; top writers earn millions annually.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Creator-first economic model**: Writers keep 90% of revenue, own their audience and content, and can leave anytime with no platform fees or contracts.
- **Built-in network effects**: More than half of new subscribers come from within the platform’s discovery tools, reducing the need for creators to build audiences from scratch.
- **All-in-one platform**: Combines publishing, payments, growth tools, analytics, podcasting, video, and community management — no technical expertise required.
- **Legal support**: Substack Defender provides unique legal protection that reduces risk for independent publishers.
- **Brand trust and ecosystem**: A recognized leader in the creator economy with a strong network of high-profile writers and millions of paying subscribers.

## Strategic Focus
- Expanding the platform beyond newsletters into a full "media app" for all creator formats (writing, podcasting, video, live content).
- Growing the network effect through recommendations, Notes, and app-driven discovery to reduce customer acquisition costs for creators.
- Scaling the enterprise offering for media companies and full newsrooms.
- Deepening community features to increase subscriber engagement and retention.
- Building out the New York City office to expand talent and presence on the East Coast.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Small but growing team (100+ people) with a strong mission-driven focus on empowering creators and independent culture. Every employee participates in customer support to build empathy with users.
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Hybrid model; employees can work from San Francisco HQ, the new New York office, or remotely across the US, Canada, and UK.
- **Benefits**: 100% premium coverage for employees and dependents (health care), fully funded HRA plans, generous parental leave, monthly internet/phone stipend, flexible vacation, 12 paid holidays, and a winter office shutdown between Christmas Eve and New Year’s.
- **Engineering Culture**: Pragmatic approach to problem-solving, shipping high-quality products; team works on a platform that directly impacts millions of creators and subscribers.
- **Perks**: Home office customization allowance, internet stipends, and a strong emphasis on work-life balance with flexible time off.

## Sources
1. [substack.com/about](https://substack.com/about)
2. [substack.com/jobs](https://substack.com/jobs)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/substack](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substack)
4. [builtin.com/company/substack](https://builtin.com/company/substack)
5. [linkedin.com/company/substack](https://www.linkedin.com/company/substack)

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