Full Stack Engineer

About Elita

Elita is the world's first longevity platform for pets, powered by biology. Think Function Health meets Flo meets Oura ring, for pets. We combine biological data, clinical histories, and owner-captured observations to drive preventative care, earlier risk detection to result in more good years with the animals people love most.

We're an early-stage, growing fast, and backed by Side Stage Ventures, Archangel, M8 Ventures, Startmate, and XA Network.

Our team is in the office 5 days a week in our beautiful Brunswick space, with easy access to pat beautiful dogs while you work.

The Role

This is our first in-house engineering hire so you're not slotting into a machine, you're helping build it.

We’re looking for a Mid level Full Stack Engineer based in Melbourne to work directly alongside one of the Founders on building and scaling the core product, plus the internal tooling and automations that keep the whole business moving.

We’re looking for a generalist with Front end, Back end and Cloud skills that one day can drop into the code and debug what's actually going on and jump into GCP to scale our Cloud Systems the next.

AI skills are a must have for this role, we’re already AI-directed and automated, so being genuinely fluent with AI coding tools to push our tooling to it’s potential is key for us.

We care more about architectural judgement than syntax. Tools can write most of the code; we need someone who knows how to structure systems, make good design calls, and understand why things are built the way they are.

The work splits across our core product and business-ops: in-house software, automations, internal tooling. It's varied and it'll evolve as we grow and scale our product and business.

What You'll Do

• Build and ship across Blueprint: full-stack TypeScript, React (19 + Vite), and Node.js / NestJS.
• Direct AI coding tools to do the bulk of the build, and push them to their full potential.
• Drop into the code and debug what's actually happening when the output needs a human.
• Make the architectural calls: structure systems, weigh design decisions, own the why.
• Build internal tooling and automations that make the whole business run faster.
• Work across our monorepo (Nx, pnpm).
• Help direct and support our offshore dev team when needed, without it becoming a management gig.
• Deploy and scale on GCP (Docker VMs) as we grow.
• Pitch in on Python data-science processing and Capacitor mobile (iOS/Android) where the work calls for it.
• Turn what works into repeatable patterns the rest of the team can build on.
• Help build the connective tissue between our business-ops, product-analytics, and logistics stacks .

A Day in the Life

9:00: In the office. CI's green, yesterday's automation ran clean, and there's one Blueprint bug worth chasing. You triage and pick your first thing.

10:00: Sync with the founders on a product feature. You sketch the architecture together, agree on the shape, and start building.

11:00: Build session. You're automating as much as possible, reviewing what gets produced, stepping in by hand where it matters.

12:30: Lunch. You pat Edgar Allan Paw (non-negotiable).

1:30: An internal-ops problem lands. You spec a small automation, wire it up, and delete an hour of someone's weekly busywork.

2:30: You wire up event tracking on the feature you shipped, then pull up last week's funnel to see where users are dropping off. The data tells you what to build next.

4:00: Architecture time. A decision now saves weeks later, so you think it through and write up the why.

5:30: Queue tomorrow's build, push your branch, head out.

You're Our Person If

• You've got a strong full-stack background in our ecosystem: TypeScript, React (we're on React 19 + Vite), Node.js / NestJS, working in a monorepo (Nx, pnpm). Familiarity across the stack matters more than deep expertise in every single piece.
• You have worked in and enjoy the early stages of startups like ours with roughly 3-5 years of experience as a Full Stack Engineer
• You've got sound architectural judgement and you know how to structure systems, make good design decisions, and can explain why.
• You're genuinely fluent with AI coding tools and obsessed with pushing them to their limits. This is core to the role, not a box to tick.
• You can drop into unfamiliar code and work out what's actually going on.
• You've got a bias to action and a "I can figure that out today" attitude over "someone else will have to do this."
• You're happy helping steer an offshore dev team without wanting it to become a management job.
• Melbourne-based and up for being in the office. We're small and face-to-face genuinely matters here.

Good to have (not must-haves):

• Cloud deployment and infra experience. We're on GCP via Docker VMs, and experience scaling cloud systems is valuable. It's not a dedicated SRE role, but cloud/infra and architectural chops are absolutely valued.
• Python. We do a fair bit of data-science processing work, mostly deployed in Python.
• Mobile via Capacitor (iOS/Android). That's what's currently in the app stores.

Who This Suits

A strong Mid-level Engineer who wants more responsibility and ownership in their work in an exciting early stage company with a mission to help our pets live as long as possible.

Capability and AI fluency matter to us more than title, and we'll land on the right level (and salary) based on what you bring.

This is the first engineering seat in the company, working shoulder-to-shoulder with one of our Founders which means real ownership and a genuine hand in how engineering gets done here.

If you're leaving a bigger company, we get the appeal of less red tape and meetings and more impact, as long as you know & are comfortable with how scrappy, hands-on, and short on playbooks we are - you'll write the playbooks here rather than follow them.

We're Melbourne-based and work in the office in Brunswick as the default setting.

If you crave ownership and want in at the ground level on a product and a mission you actually care about, this is it.

This Role Is NOT

• A management seat. You'll help direct the offshore team, but you're here to build.
• A dedicated SRE or infra-only role. Cloud matters, but it's not the whole job.
• A Senior or Staff role, we’re not quite at that stage yet.
• A ticket-taking role. You help direct the build, you don't wait to be told.
• For anyone who treats AI tooling as optional, or as a threat.
• A remote-first, slow-paced corporate meeting factor. In-person and fast is the default.

Compensation & Growth

Salary = Dependent on experience and in line with market for our stage, we'll land on the right number based on what you bring, with room to grow as we scale.

Equity = You'll own a part of Elita through our Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP). As the company grows, so does the value of your shares.

Growth = Skills & ownership you won't get in a traditional growth role or a corporate environment, you'll be across every part of a growing startup, from R&D to operations, marketing, and beyond.

Your Profile = Build your own name while you build ours. We back our people to be visible, speaking, posting, sharing the work, so your profile grows as Elita does.

The Dog Factor = Help millions of pets live longer, healthier lives & and 10x your YoY dog-patting frequency.