Senior Staff Engineer in Madison, Wisconsin at Recovery.com

Here’s why we need your help

Recovery.com has a small, fast-moving engineering team building both a consumer marketplace and provider-facing tools that connect people with recovery and mental health treatment. As we continue to scale, we need a technical leader who can ship production code while setting the architectural direction that enables our engineering team to move quickly and build for long-term growth.

This is the most senior individual contributor role on our engineering team. You'll influence technical direction across the engineering organization, solve complex technical challenges, and build alignment through technical expertise, collaboration, and hands-on execution. You'll serve as a trusted technical partner across Engineering and Product, helping shape how reliably and efficiently we deliver solutions for the people seeking care and the providers who serve them.

This role will play a central part in delivering a major strategic initiative this year while leading future high-impact engineering efforts. We're looking for someone with a proven track record of curiosity, adaptability, and technical mastery who embraces emerging technologies, especially as AI continues to rapidly evolve, and turns them into meaningful product and architectural improvements.

Work Location

Madison, Wisconsin

How you know you’re being successful

• You establish yourself as the trusted technical leader across the engineering organization by delivering complex initiatives, influencing architectural direction, and helping engineers make better technical decisions
• Your architectural improvements measurably increase engineering velocity, system reliability, scalability, and the team's ability to deliver strategic business initiatives
• You successfully mentor and elevate the technical capabilities of the engineering team while delivering high-impact projects that directly support Recovery.com's long-term growth

We’ll expect you to do things like these

• Identify, evaluate, and implement AI tooling throughout the software development lifecycle to improve engineering quality, speed, and scalability
• Drive the technical architecture for generative AI capabilities, ensuring solutions are reliable, testable, scalable, and maintainable in production
• Proactively evaluate emerging AI technologies and recommend or implement new capabilities that create meaningful product and engineering improvements

• Design, build, test, and ship production-ready full-stack features across React/Next.js, Node.js, PostgreSQL, and related technologies while maintaining high standards for quality, testing, and performance across our consumer marketplace and provider-facing products
• Write clean, maintainable, well-tested TypeScript that establishes a high bar for engineering quality
• Debug and resolve complex production issues that span multiple systems and technical domains
• Build and maintain search functionality utilizing PostgreSQL and Algolia while implementing technical SEO best practices that improve discoverability and user experience
• Participate actively in code reviews, providing thoughtful feedback and helping elevate engineering standards across the team

• Own and evolve system architecture across multiple engineering domains by establishing technical standards for APIs, data models, infrastructure, deployment, scalability, reliability, and long-term maintainability
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions, third-party integrations, infrastructure investments, and platform capabilities to support long-term technical strategy
• Partner closely with Engineering leadership, Product, and cross-functional stakeholders to define technical strategy, navigate ambiguity, proactively reduce technical debt and architectural risk, mentor engineers across areas of expertise, and deliver meaningful business outcomes

Required Qualifications

• Demonstrated track record of flexibility, curiosity, continuous learning, and technical mastery with the ability to quickly adopt and apply emerging technologies
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including deep hands-on experience building and shipping production applications
• Deep expertise in full-stack TypeScript development. Experience with React/Next.js and Node.js is preferred, although equivalent modern frontend and backend technologies are welcomed
• Proven experience designing and owning technical architecture for production systems, including API design, service boundaries, data modeling, scalability, reliability, and performance optimization
• Experience working with relational databases, cloud infrastructure, and modern deployment platforms, with the ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams through collaboration, documentation, and technical leadership rather than formal authority

What we think will improve your chances of success

• Experience with PostgreSQL, Algolia, AWS, GCP, Vercel, Cloudflare, or comparable modern cloud platforms
• Experience building infrastructure using Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) approaches and evolving cloud architecture over time
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and raising technical standards without direct people management responsibilities
• Experience building products within the recovery, mental health, or another highly regulated, compliance-sensitive industry, including familiarity with HIPAA or similar privacy frameworks
• Previous experience in an early-stage or high-growth startup, building marketplace products, implementing technical SEO strategies, and leading through ambiguity with a bias toward action

Sound like the role for you? We’d love to hear from you! Even if you’re not 100% sure about potential fit, we still encourage you to apply. We’re looking for the right person, not the perfect series of checkboxes.

Travel Expectations

Occasional travel for company gatherings, engineering planning sessions, or team collaboration events.

Compensation

The base salary range for this position is $180,000–$220,000, plus eligible benefits. Compensation may be adjusted based on tenure and experience. For employees residing in Dane County, total annual compensation—including base salary and the housing stipend—is approximately $188,823–$228,823.

Dane County Housing Stipend

We strongly value in-person work and collaboration, so for full-time employees residing in Dane County, we offer a housing stipend of $735.26/month in addition to your salary ($8,823.12/yr; half of the Fair Market Value of a 2BR apartment in Madison according to rentdata.org).

Equity Options

In addition to your cash compensation, you will receive options to buy stock in Recovery.com at a set strike price. These options will vest on a four-year schedule and present an exciting opportunity to benefit from the upside of our company’s growth.

Quarterly Bonus

An additional percentage of base earnings is paid out quarterly when the company meets its revenue target.

Benefits and Perks

This role is eligible for the following benefits and perks:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance (100% of premiums paid for employees, 50% of premiums paid for dependents)
• Short- and long-term disability and basic life insurance
• 401K (100% company match up to 3% and 50% on the next 2%)
• Paid time off, paid holidays, and leaves of absence
• Education Assistance (for educational coursework directly related to your role)
• Flexible hybrid and work-from-home policy

Physical Requirements

• Sit down and operate a computer for extended periods of time
• Able to work in an open office environment
• Lift items weighing up to 15 lbs

About Recovery.com

Each year, 90% of people who need addiction treatment don’t receive it. One of the major reasons is the difficulty in finding a treatment provider, and as people increasingly turn to the internet over family, friends, or medical professionals to find care, Recovery.com is making a difference in thousands of people’s lives by providing a comprehensive, user-friendly resource for finding addiction and mental health treatment.

Launched in 2017, Recovery.com is a late-stage startup based in Madison, WI, on a mission to be the most trusted online resource for connecting patients and mental health providers. We are rapidly growing and profitable, and looking to scale our impact by helping as many people as possible find the treatment they need.

Our core values aren’t just words to us! They define who we are and how we work. People who are successful at Recovery.com:

• Regularly show compassion and empathy for customers, patients, and fellow colleagues
• Display vulnerability by demonstrating authenticity with themselves and encouraging it in others
• Strive for growth and humbly seek to improve in all aspects of work
• Demonstrate joy and a positive attitude in every interaction, from office conversations to solving difficult problems
• Exhibit accountability by not only fulfilling their own responsibilities, but helping others in their work as well
• Embrace creativity by testing the norms and being open to new ideas

Equal Opportunity Statement

Recovery.com is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and creating an inclusive environment for all our employees. We welcome applicants regardless of ethnic origin, national origin, veteran status, gender identity, race, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, age, or any other protected characteristic. We value the talents of individuals from all backgrounds and actively seek a diverse workforce.

Our mission is to provide a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone, and reasonable accommodations are available to any applicant who may need them. Please reach out to careers@Recovery.com.com to request accommodations; we’d be happy to chat!