Who we are and what we do

Contra is a multi-sided marketplace reinventing the future of work. We empower independents to build standout professional brands, get verified for their skills, and connect directly with top companies—without the friction of outdated hiring systems or commission fees.

For companies, Contra offers a flexible, all-in-one platform to discover, hire, and manage world-class independent talent. From onboarding to payments to collaboration, we make it seamless to work with freelancers across every stage of the project lifecycle.

We’ve raised over $44M from leading investors like NEA, Unusual Ventures, and Cowboy Ventures—and we’re just getting started.

Why join Contra’s journey?

We’re building the commission-free creative network. Think LinkedIn for creatives. We’re laying the infrastructure for how the next generation works and earns.

At Contra, we believe the best work happens outside the constraints of traditional employment. With a network of over 1 million independents and 50,000 clients, we’re creating a new kind of professional network—one built on trust, transparency, and freedom.As work becomes more project-based and global, we’re helping top talent find meaningful opportunities, and helping companies scale with agility. If you’re excited about rethinking how people connect, collaborate, and thrive in the modern economy—this is the place to do it.

About You:

• You understand modern AI systems, products and workflows. You have opinions and taste in these areas, and know how to build polished AI-driven user experiences that delight, not detract.
• You are an excellent, independent problem solver.
• You have high standards for craft, quality, and attention-to-detail for the work that you ship, and motivate others to raise the bar.
• You know how to articulate and balance the tradeoffs of rapid pace exploration and building performant, scalable, reliable, and quality systems.
• You have high standards for verbal and written communication and are experienced at working in a remote organization, preferring to over-communicate and collaborate synchronously when able.
• You thrive in a fast-paced and dynamic environment. Our team knows how to execute and is relentless about our velocity. You smartly use AI to increase your personal velocity, but are experienced enough an engineer on your own to navigate and keep it in check.
• You apply an ownership mentality to everything you ship, and collaborate cross-functionally with other teams to achieve success.
• You dedicate effort to staying up to date with new technologies, patterns, and AI.

In a day at Contra, you’ll probably:

• Contribute to our end-to-end TypeScript, GraphQL, React monorepo. You’ll work across the stack — including our AI stack (LLMs, embeddings, vector search, evals, etc.)
• Contribute to our Vitest/Playwright test suite.
• Participate in the RFC process, building alignment around new database and API schemas and new patterns.
• Participate in all parts of the product development process, like design critiques, code reviews, and cross-functional planning with your team.
• Work on maintaining a tidy home: eliminate technical debt, improve performance, address customer bugs, improve developer experience, etc.

Our Stack:

• Backend: TypeScript, PostgreSQL, GraphQL, NodeJS, Redis, Temporal
• Frontend: React, Relay, PandaCSS
• Data: Airbyte, dbt, Google BigQuery
• DevOps: ArgoCD, Docker, GitHub, Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes
• Testing: Playwright, Vitest
• Tools: Linear, Mergify, PostHog, Slack, Turbo
• AI: OpenAI, Cursor, Supermaven, CodeRabbit (for code reviews — it’s actually great!)

Total Comp:

• Salary: $170,000 – $200,000 CAD
• Health + dental benefits
• Home Office Budget
• We will provide you with a company laptop on your start date

Interview Process

1. Intro Call with Recruiting Team (15-20 minutes)
2. Technical Interview with Hiring Manager (45 minutes)
3. Culture & Cross-Functional Interview (45 minutes)
4. Paid Technical Assessment (3 hours) + Presentation (60 minutes)
   1. CTO & Co-Founder
   2. Engineering Manager
5. Interview with CEO & Co-Founder (30 minutes)