Full-Stack Engineer (Contract, Palo Alto)

About the role

Moon Creative Lab is seeking a Full‑Stack Engineer on a 3‑month full‑time contract (40 hours/week) based in Palo Alto, CA. You will help build the first‑mile operations platform for a global food producer, taking working prototypes into production, integrating with a partner’s API and live GPS feeds, and collaborating with a Project Manager, Product Designer, Lead Engineer, and the partner’s operations and IT teams. Occasional travel may be required.

Responsibilities

• Prototype building: Web and mobile interfaces aimed at quick experimentation and validation.
• Web app delivery: Deliver a responsive bilingual (EN/ES) web interface including authentication, deployment, CI/CD, monitoring, error tracking, and other quality‑of‑life services.
• Data integration: Connect to the partner's API layer and live GPS feeds from third‑party providers.
• Contribute to the tech direction: Participate in stack, architecture, and scope calls, supported by documentation.

Requirements

• Build‑to‑learn mindset: able to build quick, throwaway prototypes to test ideas with real users and know what is needed before production (error handling, security, tests, monitoring) and which shortcuts can stay.
• Experience delivering apps to production: 7+ years building web applications and keeping them running for real users; strong in React and TypeScript, comfortable on the backend (Node.js or Python), and capable of designing a relational database.
• AI‑assisted development: proficient with AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code) and understand when to trust output and when to verify.
• Infrastructure ownership: experience handling deployment, CI/CD, monitoring, auth, and secrets management independently.
• Real‑time systems: shipped user‑facing products built on live or near‑real‑time data and can explain trade‑offs (latency, consistency, cost) to non‑technical stakeholders.

Skills (Nice‑to‑Have)

• Business‑level Spanish: able to work comfortably in Spanish with the partner team.
• React Native and mobile depth: shipped React Native apps and understand developing interfaces for small screens.
• Geospatial and telemetry experience: worked with mapping tools (Mapbox, Leaflet, deck.gl, PostGIS), open satellite imagery (e.g., Copernicus Sentinel‑2), or time‑series and sensor data pipelines.
• Conversational interfaces: built products on the WhatsApp Business API or similar messaging platforms.

Pay

$110–$160 per hour.

Schedule

3‑month full‑time contract