Role Overview
We are looking for a senior developer who wants to quickly take on significant responsibility for a product in production and grow into a technical leadership role, with a clear path toward CTO responsibilities as the company grows. We are a Finnish start-up whose mission is to build the world’s best tools for helping others. Our business comes from municipalities and cities, which can use our free platform as a platform for civic engagement. Our product has been out for years and we have paying customers. This year, our focus is on:
- building significant new features
- launching AI-assisted functions in the control panel,
- conducting retention-related experiments and automation,
- and keeping the current application functional and smooth.
The technical founder (CEO) is currently hands-on. What we are looking for is a person that can become the second “engine” of development.
What will you be doing (0–6 months)
- You will deliver new features end-to-end (full-stack) and participate in design/specification.
- You manage significant projects (e.g., control panel rework + AI assistant) in a way that keeps quality and delivery in balance.
- You will build and develop the technical side of retention experiments (instrumentation, automation, communication).
- You will share responsibility for production stability and incident response together with the team.
- You will take charge of the system setup and overall picture (deployments, integrations, data, release paths).
Technical lead -> CTO track (6–12 months)
- Technical direction / architecture and ownership of implementation plans.
- Backlog / project management together with the founder. Shape architecture, system design, and scalability strategy.
- Recruitment and team development (identifying needs, participating in selection processes, onboarding). Mentor and grow the engineering team.
- Security / compliance criteria (we will recruit additional staff for this if necessary).
- In the longer term, transition to 50 / 50 product ownership: business requirements from the founders, technical plans and implementation paths from you.
- Leading end-to-end delivery of core features.
What we expect from you
Mandatory
- At least ~5 years of experience in programming and proven track record in a production environment.
- Full-stack approach and ability to take ownership of large entities.
- Experience or strong readiness to work with our stack: JS / PHP & Laravel / React Native / AWS / Postgres / MongoDB. Our current stack from backend side is primarily monolithic, with auxiliary systems in place for specialised tasks. Part of your role will be to evolve this architecture pragmatically as the product and team grow.
- Ability to specify and plan: you translate business requirements into a clear implementation plan.
- Good team skills: communication, prioritization, and cooperation are critical in everyday life.
Bonus
- Experience in a start-up environment and rapid experimentation.
- Experience with retention / A/B testing, message automation, and measurement.
- Building AI functions into the product (guardrails, measurement, cost/latency).
Location and practices
- Salary: €5,000 / month + performance based option model after the trial period.
- 6-month trial period. Salary from the start.
- Finnish is not a mandatory language. English is the working language and good English is expected. Nationality is not a restriction.
- We expect you to be ready to move to Finland within 6–18 months if you live outside Finland.
- We expect those living in Finland to be available to visit our Tampere office from time to time. Those living abroad can start remotely, and we also organize work periods together on site.
Why join us
Commu is a mission-driven company building tools that enable people and communities to help one another. Our platform is already used by tens of thousands of people across three countries, with municipalities and cities as customers.
We are a small, ambitious team with wide real-world impact. You will work with kind, driven people in a culture built on trust, honesty, and shared ownership. We value learning, openness, and practical progress over hierarchy or titles.
We don’t offer the highest salaries or the fanciest offices, but we do offer meaningful responsibility, room to grow, and the chance to shape both the product and the team in a company that genuinely aims to make a difference.
Decision-making and autonomy
The founders are responsible for the product vision and strategy. You will have a high degree of autonomy in implementation, experimentation, and improvement. Major, permanent, and costly changes are made jointly, based on the business case and strategy.
Are you this person?
Send us a message:
mailto:ronnie@commuapp.fi
tel:+358 45 7830 1309 
