---
title: 'Product Engineer - Frontend Leaning at Alma'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/product-engineer-frontend-leaning-alma-palo-alto-5e13162gkgay'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Product Engineer - Frontend Leaning at Alma

- **Company:** Alma
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Compensation:** $150k–$250k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-22
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tryalma/48840f55-f0d4-4274-b65a-e9de8eef501f

## Job description

Alma is an AI-native law firm. We combine AI with an exceptional legal team to deliver fast, transparent, and high-touch legal services at a fraction of the cost and speed of legacy firms. Our first market is immigration law. We're focused on simplifying complex immigration processes for companies and individuals, and disrupting the $15B market that has never seen an amazing product.

We are backed by leading VCs such as Bling Capital https://www.blingcap.com/, Forerunner https://www.forerunnerventures.com/, Village Global https://www.villageglobal.vc/, NFX https://www.nfx.com/, Conviction https://www.linkedin.com/company/convictionvc/, MVP Ventures https://www.mvp-vc.com/, NEA https://www.nea.com/ and Silkroad Innovation Hub. https://silkroadinnovationhub.com/

## 🧠 FOUNDING TEAM

The founding team has an extensive background in the legal industry, consulting, and building ML platforms.

- Shuo https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuochen05/ - CTO & Cofounder: Shuo built the ML Platform (Michelangelo) at Uber for 5+ years after which he was the head of AI & ML team at a SupportLogic (a series B startup using predictive & generative AI for customer support).
- Aizada https://www.linkedin.com/in/aizadamarat/ - CEO & Cofounder: Aizada is a graduate of Harvard Law School, an attorney with 7+ years of experience including working at a top law firm such as Cooley and an ex-McKinsey consultant.

## 🔍 WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We're hiring a Product Engineer — a backend-leaning, AI-native engineer who owns features end-to-end, from database schema to the React component the user clicks on. You'll work directly with the founding team and early customers to ship a world-class AI-powered product, and help us scale our platform by 100x. We need you to be in the 99th percentile of having a "can-do" attitude.

You need to be deeply customer-obsessed. At Alma, "customer" means two distinct groups, and you'll serve both. The first is our external customers - companies and individuals navigating immigration, often under stressful, high-stakes circumstances. The second is our internal legal team - the attorneys and paralegals who use our platform every day to do their work. They are just as much your customer as anyone paying us. If a workflow is clunky for them, that's a bug. If a tool saves them two hours a day, that's a feature worth shipping yesterday. The best engineers we'll hire will sit with the legal team, watch them work, and obsess over making their lives better - not just take requirements via Linear tickets.

We're moving away from the old model where backend engineers only do backend. At Alma, the engineer who designs the API also builds the UI that consumes it. This isn't because we expect everyone to be a design genius — it's because shipping a feature end-to-end is faster, higher quality, and more fun than throwing work over a wall. With modern AI tooling, the traditional excuse of "frontend isn't my strength" no longer holds. If you're a strong backend engineer who's been intimidated by frontend, this is your moment - Claude Code and Cursor flatten that learning curve dramatically.

You also need to be an AI-native engineer. We don't just build AI products - we build with AI. You should already be living inside modern coding harnesses (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, etc.), wiring up MCP servers to extend your own workflow, and treating agents as a core part of how you ship. If your first instinct when facing a new problem is still "let me open a blank file and start typing," this role isn't for you. If your instinct is "let me spin up an agent to scaffold this, then review and harden it," keep reading.

You see problems as work to do, not things to complain about. We move fast. That means our codebase has rough edges, our processes are still being invented, and not every corner is beautiful yet - that's a feature of being early, not a bug. We want engineers whose instinct, when they hit a messy module or a missing test or a confusing abstraction, is "I'll fix it" — not "who wrote this?" Complaining is cheap; shipping the fix is the job. If you're the kind of engineer who quietly improves the codebase around every feature you ship, you'll thrive here. If you need a pristine environment to do your best work, this isn't the right stage of the company for you.

## ✅ RESPONSIBILITIES

- Work closely with the founding team and early customers to build a world-class AI-powered product.
- Own features end-to-end — architect the backend (server logic, databases, APIs), build the frontend that exposes them, and ship to production.
- Partner with our designer and product team to translate user needs into shipped experiences — not just APIs that "the frontend team will integrate later."
- Engage in the entire application lifecycle with a high bar for coding, debugging, testing, and deploying.
- Operate as a force multiplier with AI tooling — use coding agents to move 5–10x faster than traditional engineers without sacrificing quality, and continuously evolve how our team builds, reviews, and tests software.

## 🛠 ROLE REQUIREMENTS

- Enjoy working in a fast-paced environment & wear multiple hats — including ones outside your historical comfort zone.
- 2+ years of backend development experience, with demonstrated willingness (or eagerness) to own frontend work. You don't need to be a CSS wizard on day one, but you need to be the kind of engineer who'll learn React deeply rather than punt it to someone else.
- Experience developing products built on top of LLMs / ML.
- Proficient in Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, containerization and scaling microservices.
- Comfortable in (or excited to ramp on) TypeScript, React, and modern frontend tooling.
- Experience building products from zero to one.
- Ability to seek & find the right resources for solving open-ended problems.
- Daily, hands-on use of modern coding harnesses (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or equivalent) — not as autocomplete, but as a primary way of shipping production code.
- Comfortable building and consuming MCP servers to integrate internal tools, data, and workflows into your dev loop.
- Strong point of view on AI-assisted code review, automated testing, and how to keep quality high when shipping at agent speed.
- Located in the San Francisco Bay Area or willing to relocate.
- BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

## ⭐️ NICE-TO-HAVES

- Experience working in a small startup environment (Seed or Series A).
- Genuine full-stack experience — comfortable across backend, frontend, and infra.
- Understand data lake / data warehouse.
- Understand Transformer / Attention / GPU inference.
- Experience with AWS, Supabase, LaunchDarkly & Betterstack.
- Built your own MCP servers, custom agents, or internal AI dev tooling.
- Published, blogged, or shared opinions about modern AI-assisted development workflows.

## BENEFITS & PERKS

- Hyper-competitive base salary range based on experience
- 100% Health coverage + Vision + Dental
- 20 days PTO + 10 Federal Holidays
- $250 per month in wellness allowance

## About Alma

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Alma is a technology-driven immigration law firm that combines expert attorneys with an AI-powered platform to deliver faster, higher-quality visa and green card outcomes for individuals and businesses.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Shuo Chen (CTO & Co-Founder), Assel Tuleubayeva (CPO & Co-Founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Legal Services (Immigration Law / LegalTech)
- **Target customers**: B2B (companies hiring immigrant talent) and B2C (individuals applying for visas or green cards); primarily serves SMBs and growing enterprises.
- **Mission statement**: "Transform the immigration industry" by combining attorney expertise with AI/ML to streamline the complex immigration process.

## Products & Services
- **Temporary Work Visas**: End-to-end support for E-2, E-3, H-1B, L-1A, L-1B, O-1A, O-1B, and TN visas. Includes strategy, petition drafting, filing, and real-time case tracking.
- **Immigrant Visas (Green Cards)**: Full management of employment-based green cards: EB-1A, EB-1B, EB-1C, EB-2 NIW, EB-2 PERM, and EB-3.
- **Alma Platform**: A proprietary platform providing clients with real-time visibility into case status, document management, proactive updates, and SLAs – replacing traditional spreadsheets and reactive workflows.
- **For Businesses**: End-to-end immigration program management, from initial strategy through permanent residency, with dedicated attorney-led teams and structured workflows.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $5.1M (Series A, July 2024)
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Bling Capital, Forerunner, Village Global, NFX, Conviction, MVP Ventures, NEA, Silkroad Innovation Hub
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 44 employees as of mid-2025, with monthly headcount growth of +7.4%
  - 23,473 LinkedIn followers (growing +4.2% monthly)
  - Active in 5 countries (US, Canada, India, Pakistan, Slovakia)
  - 98%+ approval rate on O-1A visas and 99% on H-1B (above USCIS averages)
  - 86 NPS (Net Promoter Score)
  - Case preparation timeline of ~2 weeks vs. 4–6 weeks for traditional firms
  - SOC 2 Type I compliant (Type II in observation)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Attorney-led + AI/ML**: Combines the expertise of seasoned immigration attorneys with a structured, technology-driven workflow that proactively moves cases forward.
- **Speed**: Guaranteed turnaround time of ~2 weeks for case preparation, significantly faster than the industry standard.
- **High Approval Rates**: Consistently outperforms USCIS averages, especially for O-1A and H-1B petitions.
- **Transparency & Visibility**: Clients get real-time status updates, clear timelines, and full control via the platform – unlike traditional firms that rely on outdated portals and reactive communication.
- **Personalized Support**: Dedicated legal teams provide tailored attention, and the company’s own founders and team have personal experience with the immigration process.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the platform** to serve more businesses and individuals, expanding the range of visa pathways and geographies.
- **Deepening AI/ML capabilities** to further streamline document processing, strategy recommendations, and risk prediction.
- **Building a world-class legal and engineering team** to maintain high-touch service while increasing throughput.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven**: Work on a product that directly impacts people’s lives and helps companies build global teams.
- **Growth stage**: Early-stage startup (Series A) with rapid headcount growth – opportunity to shape the company and take on significant ownership.
- **Remote-friendly**: Many roles are remote (Immigration Attorney, Paralegal, etc.), with a Palo Alto office available for those who prefer hybrid/in-person.
- **Culture**: Emphasizes speed, excellence, care, and proactive communication. High NPS (86) reflects strong client and team satisfaction.
- **Diverse team**: Employees across 5 countries; legal, engineering, sales, product, and design departments all represented.
- **Perks**: Not explicitly listed, but typical of a well-funded startup (equity, flexible work, modern tools). The careers page shows active hiring for Product Engineer, Product Manager, Account Executive, and multiple legal roles.

## Sources
1. [tryalma.com – About Us](https://www.tryalma.com/about-us)
2. [tryalma.com – Homepage](https://www.tryalma.com/)
3. [LinkedIn – Alma Company Page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/tryalma)
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com – Alma Careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tryalma)
5. [jobalmanac.com – Alma Immigration Jobs](https://www.jobalmanac.com/companies/tryalma)

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