Senior Software Engineer - AI-First Development & Architecture

About the Role:

Loop is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to take meaningful ownership of complex, cross-functional work, from architecture and design through production. You'll build scalable solutions, influence technical direction, and make the engineers around you better.

AI at Loop Engineering:

Engineering at Loop is AI-first, not aspirationally, but operationally. Every engineer is provisioned with Claude Code and Cursor, and we expect AI agents to be your default starting point before you open a file. The role has shifted: you are not primarily a writer of code. You are the judgment layer, the person who determines what should be built, validates that what was built is correct, and owns the outcome in production. At the senior level, that judgment extends beyond your own work to the systems, standards, and people around you. You're not just using AI well — you're helping your team develop the habits and instincts to use it well too.

Our Blended Work Environment:

We work from our HQ in Columbus, OH, and are distributed throughout the United States, select Canadian provinces, United Kingdom, and Australia. For this position, we're open to Columbus, OH; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Austin, TX; Los Angeles, CA; or fully remote.

Our Tech Stack:

PHP/Laravel, Vue.js, MySQL, DynamoDB, Kubernetes, AWS, Serverless. Our hiring process is tech-stack agnostic.

What You'll Do:

• Design and implement complex, high-quality features across the full stack: backend services, APIs, lambdas, and frontend. Translate ambiguous requirements into clear technical designs and own the trade-offs.
• Start with the agent, not the editor. Invest time in planning and intent articulation. The quality of your prompt is the quality of your output.
• Review AI-generated code with the same rigor you'd apply to any code. Plausible is not the same as correct. At this level, you're also setting the standard for how your team does this.
• Set the standard for AI-assisted code review on your team. Model what good verification looks like, not just for your own PRs, but in how you give feedback on others' AI-generated work.
• Lead small to medium-sized technical initiatives: provide direction, surface dependencies early, and keep stakeholders informed without being asked.

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• Mentor and develop more junior engineers through code review, pairing, and direct feedback. Making the people around you better is part of the job, not a bonus.
• Make reversible decisions fast and flag the irreversible ones early. Operational trust means others can plan around your delivery.
• Make the system around you more effective, not just your own output. Propose improvements to code quality, processes, and team norms, and follow through on them.
  
  

Your Experience:

• 5+ years building web applications, backend services, and APIs. Strong PHP/Laravel experience preferred.
• You use AI agents as your default starting point and can describe your actual workflow: how you plan, prompt, evaluate output, and decide where to spend your review time. You own what ships, regardless of how it was generated.
• You have a point of view on where AI helps and where it gets engineers into trouble, and you actively help your team navigate that line.
• You track how your code behaves in production, not because someone asks you to, but because you own the outcome. You've caught regressions before support tickets did.
• You can evaluate architectural trade-offs and make defensible decisions, not just implement what you're handed.
• You have examples of leading technical initiatives, mentoring engineers, and driving cross-functional alignment.
• You operate with intensity and hold a high bar for your own work and for the people around you. You give direct feedback, ask for help early, and respond to setbacks with ownership rather than withdrawal.
• You've worked closely with product managers and design teams, and you've had the hard conversations with peers, stakeholders, or leaders, with directness and care.
  
  

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$155,000 - $195,000 a year

We know that making decisions about your career and compensation is a huge deal. Because of that, we’re incredibly thoughtful about our compensation strategy. We want you to feel safe and excited, but also comfortable with the compensation package of a startup. We’ve outlined some important information for you here, but please know there’s a lot more to compensation than we can cover in this job posting. The posted salary range is the base salary for this opportunity.

The salary range is subject to change, and may be adjusted in the future.

The actual annual salary paid for this position will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to: your prior experience and skills related to the position, geographic location, company needs, current market demands, and your total compensation goals.

Great humans deserve great benefits. At Loop, you’ll be eligible for benefits such as: medical, dental, and vision insurance, flexible PTO, company holidays, sick & safe leave, parental leave, 401k, monthly wellness benefit, home workstation benefit, phone/internet benefit, and equity.

Loop Story

Commerce should feel effortless. Every product adored, every order perfect, every customer loyal for life. But reality is messier: operations get tangled, margins grow thin, and trust is fragile. That’s where Loop steps in. We create confidence where commerce fails.

We started by fixing returns and exchanges. Today, we’re building a connected commerce operations suite — powering everything from order tracking to fraud prevention, with hundreds of innovations in between. Grounded in data and insight, our platform helps merchants make smarter decisions with every transaction. Over 5,000 of the world’s most loved brands trust Loop to turn cost centers into growth engines. Our mission is simple: protect margins, delight customers, and help merchants build businesses that last.

Life at Loop is rooted in our core values. We balance high empathy with high standards, knowing that work is better when we can show up authentically and resilience is built by facing challenges head-on. We expect you’ll grow quickly, learning skills that last far beyond your time here. Loop is a formative chapter in your career — a chance to shape the future of commerce and to leave better than when you arrived.

Learn more about us here: https://loopreturns.com/careers .

You can review our privacy notice here .

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.