Head of Engineering

Who we are

CO:CREATE is the trusted global home for tattoo artists and their clients, built to simplify and elevate every step of the tattoo journey. We connect clients with handpicked, world-class tattoo artists, making it easy to discover, book, and bring exceptional tattoos to life.

For clients, CO:CREATE removes the stress of unanswered messages and confusing processes by providing a seamless booking experience with trusted artists. For artists, we offer a curated platform to showcase their art, streamline their bookings, and connect with clients—all without fees or unnecessary hassle.

Backed by a $25M seed round led by a16z crypto and guided by renowned tattoo artists and industry leaders, CO:CREATE is redefining how the tattoo world connects. We’re on a mission to bring great tattoos to life and create the global home for this vibrant community.

You can learn more about our team and hiring process at https://team.cocreate.ink.

What you'll do

We expect this job posting to go live in the Spring of 2025. At that time, we will post more details about what we are looking for in a candidate.

For now, you can pre-apply here and we will consider your resume.

Mission and Outcomes for the Head of Engineering

Mission

As Head of Engineering at CO:CREATE, you will lead a nimble, high-performing team through one of the most transformative years in our company’s history. You’ll be both player and coach — delivering a mobile-first 2-sided platform for artists and clients, serving as a cross-functional leader, and evolving our engineering culture to support growth and iteration at scale. Your mission is to minimize the time from concept to customer value, while establishing proven systems that increase autonomy, clarity, and operational excellence across the team. In close collaboration with the entire team, you will help CO:CREATE find product-market fit faster, smarter, and stronger.

Outcomes

1️⃣ Launch & Scale Our Universal App

• Deliver a high-quality, React Native universal app that enables core platform functionality: messaging, scheduling, payments, media sharing, and live communication, across mobile and web devices.
  

• Partner with Product and Design to build and implement a scalable design system that serves both mobile and web experiences.
  

• Execute a focused build and release plan while managing current and experimental product needs.
  

• Establish an efficient mobile CI/CD pipeline, enabling flexibility and simplicity in releases with minimal manual overhead.
  

• Avoid waste by aligning early on platform priorities — e.g., avoiding web-only features that will require rework for mobile.

2️⃣ Serve as a Cross-Functional Leader & Strategic Partner

• Operate as a company leader first — contributing to company-wide strategy and acting as a key voice in executive planning.
  

• Collaborate closely with the team to balance speed and quality as we iterate toward product-market fit.
  

• Be a bridge between technical detail and business outcomes — helping prioritize tradeoffs transparently and pragmatically.
  

• Elevate visibility across teams through clear updates and delivery tracking.

3️⃣ Accelerate Time to Value Across the Stack

• Minimize engineering frictions that delay customer impact — from slow releases to unclear handoffs to redundant decision-making.
  

• Review and, if necessary, enhance the engineering team’s operational toolkit (e.g., release cadences, ownership models, sprint cadence, etc.).
  

• Introduce clear decision-making thresholds that enable the team to move fast once a direction is agreed upon.
  

• Improve release velocity without sacrificing reliability, using practices like feature flags and incremental rollouts.
  

4️⃣ Build a Culture of Ownership, Autonomy, Innovation & Craft

• Increase the operational independence of senior engineers by distributing decision-making and creating areas of clear ownership.
  

• Create engineering rituals that are lightweight but effective — e.g., code review expectations, demo days, sprint retros, etc.
  

• Guide and encourage technical evaluation and experimentation with cutting edge tools like LLMs, Agents, Computer Vision, Voice to Text and other AI tools; and open-mindedness around new technologies, such as web3.
  

• Coach engineers to think like product owners, not just ticket-takers.
  

• Model and reward fast, thoughtful execution — where doing > debating.
  

5️⃣ Foster Engineering Quality Through Scalable Code Practices & QA Excellence

• Establish and maintain coding standards, documentation expectations, and architectural guidelines that support clarity, consistency, and long-term maintainability.
  

• Promote a healthy culture of peer reviews, testing, and quality assurance — with an emphasis on shared learning, not gatekeeping.
  

• Drive adoption of automated testing, linting, static analysis, and other tools that reinforce quality without adding excessive process overhead.
  

• Ensure the team has a shared understanding of what "production-ready" means, including readiness checks for monitoring, observability, and rollback plans.
  

• Establish a pragmatic, scalable QA strategy that fits our stage — balancing speed, automation, and reliability across both web and mobile platforms.
  

• Build rituals and reviews that normalize pre-launch QA checks, user acceptance testing (UAT), and regression tracking — especially around mission-critical features like payments, messaging, and scheduling.

6️⃣Spread Your Passion for Tattoos to the Engineering Team

• Help your team develop empathy for the tattoo artists and clients we serve — and understand the culture, artistry, and stories behind the ink.

• Celebrate the creative spirit of tattooing through team rituals, product inspiration sessions, or direct artist interactions.

• Encourage engineers to engage with the platform like real users — whether by browsing artist profiles, using AI matching tools, or observing onboarding flows.

• Create shared understanding of how great software can amplify the impact of great artists.

Benefits & perks

• Fully remote team (US time-zone based employees only at this time)

• Team offsites twice a year

• Health insurance

• 401k Retirement plan

• Unlimited vacation & paid time off

• Two company-wide shut downs a year to give everyone the week off in both the summer and winter.

• $200/month in “get what you need” funds.

• Hate Monday meetings? So do we!  We have a strong “no meetings” policy on Mondays.

How We Work

We care personally, and challenge directly: We cultivate a BS-free culture where honesty is coupled with empathy. Our team communicates with kindness and directness, ensuring clarity and mutual respect in every interaction.

We are humble and hungry: We embrace a mindset of continuous learning and scrappy innovation. Always open to new ideas and feedback, we’re hungry for progress, relentlessly pursuing our goals with determination and resourcefulness.

We take ownership & accountability: We champion proactive ownership and outcome-based accountability. Moving beyond just participation, we focus on impactful results, taking the initiative to identify and address opportunities and challenges head-on.

We are optimistic, but realistic: We know we can be successful, but have a healthy respect for challenges we have to overcome.

We work with speed and intention: When faced with a tradeoff of fast or complete, we move fast.  Though we always strive for both.  Our actions are quick but not hasty, always connected to our objectives and responsive to the ever-evolving needs of our artists and community.

What We Prioritize

​Artists' Needs Above All: At our core, we prioritize the welfare and prosperity of artists. We're dedicated to innovating solutions that amplify artists' earnings and recognition, always placing their needs at the forefront of our endeavors.

Community Collaboration: We believe in the power of community. By fostering a collaborative environment, we ensure that artists, collectors, and community members have a voice in shaping our platform, aligning everyone’s incentives for mutual success.

Technology coupled with a respect for tradition: Honoring the rich traditions of tattoo art, we blend respect for history with a passion for innovation and emergent technology. Our approach involves understanding the past to skillfully craft the future, using technology to enhance and preserve the essence of this ancient art form.

About CO:CREATE

We are a woman-led company and believe in fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. Candidates of all protected classes are encouraged to apply and we offer equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, national origin, gender, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or parental status, disability, veteran status, or other class protected by applicable law.