Senior Software Engineer - Fullstack

Company: HONK Technologies
Location: Chicago, IL (Hybrid - 3-5 days/week in office)
Salary: $160,000 - $185,000 USD per year

About HONK Technologies

HONK Technologies is redefining the towing and roadside assistance experience, transforming challenging automotive situations into positive, brand-defining moments. We are a trusted partner for major insurers, fleets, automotive OEMs, and retailers, recognized for our industry-leading customer satisfaction scores and commitment to digital innovation. We operate as a fast-moving, product-driven engineering organization focused on building reliable, real-time systems at scale.

The Role

HONK is seeking a Senior Software Engineer - Fullstack to architect, build, and scale our core platform and customer-facing products. You will work closely with the CTO and engineering team to develop high-performance applications across the entire stack, including frontend experiences, backend services, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. This hands-on role is perfect for individuals who enjoy solving complex technical problems, shipping code rapidly, and contributing to product and technical direction within a collaborative startup environment. This position reports directly to the CTO.

What You'll Own

• Design, build, and maintain scalable full-stack applications and services.
• Develop responsive frontend applications using React and TypeScript.
• Build and enhance backend systems using Ruby on Rails and Java.
• Architect APIs, real-time systems, and high-throughput microservices, with a primary focus on optimizing our core dispatch and logistics engine.
• Define testing and review practices, introducing automated frameworks into our release process to improve reliability.
• Improve platform scalability and reliability by anticipating scaling limits, identifying reliability risks early, and enhancing system observability.
• Take ownership of a technical area and its downstream impacts, ensuring decisions align with product goals and do not negatively affect dependent systems or the business.
• Collaborate with Product, UX, and Engineering teams to ship customer-facing features.
• Support AI-enabled initiatives and automation efforts across internal tools and workflows.
• Mentor engineers, provide architectural guidance, and drive engineering excellence across the team.

What You Bring

• 8+ years of experience building and shipping scalable web applications and distributed systems, with experience preparing platforms for significant scale (3-5x).
• Deep expertise in Ruby on Rails and Java (our core backend languages).
• Strong frontend engineering experience with modern JavaScript frameworks, particularly React and TypeScript.
• Demonstrated experience with AWS cloud infrastructure.
• Domain expertise in logistics, routing, mapping, or dispatch systems (familiarity with route optimization is a significant plus).
• A proven track record of establishing automated testing frameworks and CI/CD quality gates from scratch.
• Strong systems context awareness, with the ability to consider downstream effects across adjacent systems to avoid cascading failures.
• Experience contributing to operational excellence, including establishing observability metrics, monitoring, and proactive debugging of performance issues.
• Strong communication skills, capable of facilitating discussions, clearly articulating technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, and aligning teams on technical direction.
• Curiosity about emerging technologies and experience leveraging AI tools and workflows to improve development velocity.

Compensation and Benefits

• Salary: $160,000 - $185,000 per year. The pay is based on factors including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
• HONK offers a total compensation package, which may include commission and other forms of compensation, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and other benefits.

About the Work Environment

HONK is a remote-first company, embracing the possibilities of collaboration and flexibility for team members across the US. We foster a diverse and inclusive community.

HONK is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Note: HONK does not work with third-party recruiters or staffing agencies for this role. Be aware of recruiting scams; all official communication will come directly from the HONK team through official company channels.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools may be used to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications and resumes. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are made by humans.