Product Engineer - Parse

About the role

You’ll build the endpoint developers reach for when they need to turn documents (PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, and more) into clean, layout-aware data an AI can actually use. Parse takes a local or non-public file and returns LLM-ready markdown or structured JSON in a single call, with tables, headings, footnotes, and reading order preserved.

This is hands-on product engineering at the core of what Firecrawl does: shipping the document-parsing features that thousands of developers hit every day, owning them from idea to production, and obsessing over the details that make an API a joy to build on. You’ll ship real product from day one, not tickets in a backlog.

What You'll Do

• Build and ship developer-facing document-parsing features from idea to production
• Own the reliability and quality of parsed output across PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, and more, including the messy scanned and mixed-format files that break traditional parsers
• Turn hard, ambiguous problems (layout detection, table structure, reading order, OCR routing) into clean APIs developers love to use
• Work directly with the engineering team on the roadmap and the tradeoffs behind it
• Dogfood the product, read the GitHub issues, and let real developer pain drive what you build

What We're Looking For

• You've built and shipped developer-facing product that people actually used
• You care about developer experience like a designer cares about pixels: latency, output schema, docs, the whole feel of it
• You're comfortable owning ambiguous problems and turning them into shipped features
• You move fast and close the loop - you'd rather ship, measure, and iterate than perfect on paper

What We're NOT Looking For

• Someone who needs a fully-specced ticket to start
• A strong backend engineer who's indifferent to how the product feels to use
• Someone who optimizes for process over shipping

About Firecrawl

Firecrawl is the easiest way to turn the web into data AI agents can use. One API call converts any URL into clean, LLM-ready markdown or structured data—the boring-hard problem everyone building with LLMs eventually hits, solved. We hit 8 figures in ARR in year one and more than doubled it in year two. We have 170k+ GitHub stars, and developers, agents, and category-defining AI companies build on us every day.

Growth like this is rare, and we're just getting started. We're a small team punching far above our weight. Everyone here owns a real piece of the product and company, end to end, and runs it themselves—no hiding behind process or headcount.

This is a place for people who want to work at the frontier: an AI company building the infrastructure other AI companies run on, not one bolting AI onto an existing product. We move fast, go deep, and are building the tools superintelligence will rely on to gather data from the web.

Salary

Salary Range: $235,000–$260,000/year (Range shown is for U.S.-based employees in San Francisco, CA. Compensation outside the U.S. is adjusted fairly based on your country's cost of living.)

Equity

Competitive equity — details shared during the process.

Location

San Francisco, CA (Hybrid, on-site required)

Job Type

Full-Time

Experience

3+ years building and shipping developer-facing product

Visa

Must be legally authorized to work in the United States. We're not able to sponsor visas right now, though that may change down the line.

Benefits & Perks

Available to all employees

• Salary that makes sense — $235,000–$260,000/year, based on impact, not tenure
• Own a piece — Gain competitive equity in what you're helping build
• Generous PTO — 15 days mandatory, anything after 24 days, just ask (holidays excluded); take the time you need to recharge
• Parental leave — 12 weeks fully paid, for all parents
• Wellness stipend — $100/month for the gym, therapy, massages, or whatever keeps you human
• Learning & Development — Expense up to $1,000/year toward anything that helps you grow professionally
• Team offsites — A change of scenery, minus the trust falls
• Sabbatical — 3 paid months off after 4 years, do something fun and new

Available to US-based full-time employees

• Full coverage, no red tape — Medical, dental, and vision (100% for employees, 50% for spouse/kids) — no weird loopholes, just care that works
• Life & Disability insurance — Employer-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance — coverage for life's curveballs
• Supplemental options — Optional accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and voluntary life insurance for extra peace of mind
• Doctegrity telehealth — Talk to a doctor from your couch
• 401(k) plan — Retirement might be a ways off, but future-you will thank you
• Pre-tax benefits — Access to FSAs and commuter benefits (US-only) to help your wallet out a bit
• Pet insurance — Because fur babies are family too

Available to SF-based employees

• SF HQ perks — Snacks, drinks, team lunches, intense ping pong, and peak startup energy
• E-Bike transportation — A loaner electric bike to get you around the city, on us