Software Engineer

Distrosub

Lead Developer, Distrosub (Part-Time, Brisbane)

Distrosub is an artist-audience direct music supprt and streaming platform built in Brisbane. We are a small start-up with big goals and strong commitment to improving the system for artists. Listeners subscribe to individual artists directly, and we pay out at rates well above the major streamers. We run listener and artist web apps, an admin panel, mobile, an editorial site (The Tape), and a backend handling subscriptions, wallets, payouts, and content delivery.

Our current lead developer is heading to a role in Melbourne. We're looking for someone to step into the lead engineering seat.

What you'll own

Architecture and direction across four codebases: backend API, admin panel, listener web app, artist web app
Sprint planning and PR review for a small dev team (one full-time dev, QA lead, and contractors)
Production deploys, infrastructure, and on-call for incidents
Shipping features alongside the team. This is not a pure manager role; you'll write code.

The stack

Next.js across the web apps, Node on the backend, Firebase Admin for auth, Postgres (Neon), Stripe for payments and subscriptions, AWS SES for transactional email. Mobile apps are PWA wrappers of the listener web app (soon to be native). Monday.com for sprint tracking, GitHub for source, Vercel and AWS for hosting.

AI in our workflow, and why this matters

We use AI heavily in our day-to-day engineering. Sprint tickets are scaffolded by Claude Code agents, PRs are drafted with AI assistance, and we expect every engineer to be fluent with these tools. Claude Code specifically is our default. If you've shipped real, production-quality work with it (or Cursor, Aider, or similar), tell us about it in your application.

If you're skeptical of AI in the loop, or have never used these tools in a serious production setting, this role isn't the right fit. We're not looking for someone to learn on the job here; we're looking for someone who already has opinions about how to use these tools well, where they fail, and how to keep code quality high while moving fast.

You'll be a strong fit if you

Have led a small product engineering team before
Are comfortable full-stack across TypeScript, Next.js, and Node
Have shipped payment and subscription systems (Stripe webhooks should not scare you)
Can run a sprint, review PRs to a high standard, and mentor mid-level developers
Use AI tools as a force multiplier and have a point of view about how to do it well

The details

2 days per week, in-office at our venue Superordinary in Hamilton, Brisbane
Two-week handover with our outgoing lead, starting June 2026
Permanent part-time, with scope to grow as the platform does

To apply

Email ***email_hidden*** with:

A short note about why this interests you
A CV or LinkedIn link
One example of AI-assisted work you're proud of (a PR, a side project, a workflow you've built; anything that shows how you actually work with these tools)
Use the platform and take some notes

Best,

Lincoln Savage

Founder, Distrosub