Staff PRODUCT ENGINEER (Contract)
Build it. Ship it. Own it.
Location: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru
About Counterpart
Counterpart is an insurtech platform reimagining management and professional liability for the modern workplace. We believe that when businesses lead with clarity and confidence, they become more resilient, more innovative, and better prepared for what's ahead. That's why we built the first Agentic Insurance™ system — where advanced AI and deep insurance expertise come together to proactively assess, mitigate, and manage risk. Backed by A-rated carriers and trusted by brokers nationwide, our platform helps small businesses grow with confidence. Join us in shaping a smarter future, helping businesses Do More With Less Risk®.
The Role
As a Product Engineer at Counterpart, you own problems and drive outcomes. You iron out requirements with stakeholders, partners, and customers. You leverage AI for implementation. You verify the end-to-end result. You iterate until you move the needle.
You run projects with other Product Engineers and AI agents. You know when to delegate to a human, when to delegate to an agent, and when to do it yourself.
YOU WILL
Own the Problem
- Take accountability for the outcome.
- Talk directly to your users, stakeholders, and peers to discover the problem.
- Translate business intents into functional requirements that engineers and agents can build against. Determine where human judgment is non-negotiable and where AI can augment or act autonomously.
- Own the non-functional technical requirements. Specify the quality bar: performance, scalability, reliability, security, maintainability.
Build with AI
- Write production-quality code across the stack: Python, Django, AWS, React, and PostgreSQL. You are not afraid of any layer.
- Direct agents and review their output with domain depth. Catch what they miss across the functional and non-functional bar: correctness, edge cases, performance, security, testability, readability.
- Evaluate and improve agent output regularly. Track failure modes. Refine the prompts and patterns that lift the quality ceiling over time.
- Run projects that span other Product Engineers and agents. Coordinate work, manage dependencies, and keep things moving without micromanaging.
- Contribute to architectural decisions. Bring options and alternatives, not objections. Know when the elegant solution is the wrong call for a startup moving fast.
- Contribute to and manage the context harness as you build and deliver.
Verify and Iterate
- Surface delivery risks early. Bring solutions, not just problems. Keep your stakeholders informed without turning every risk into a meeting.
- Verify the end-to-end result yourself. Confirm the system does what the requirements say, and that the requirements were right.
- Drive adoption of what you ship. Documentation, enablement, and usage monitoring are part of the job.
- Monitor your services in production. Own the signal. Debug and fix what breaks.
- Participate in support rotations. When users run into issues with what you shipped, you investigate and fix them.
- Iterate until you move the needle. Shipping is not the finish line. Outcome is.
Raise the Bar
- Mentor engineers around you. Give direct, useful feedback. Leave things better than you found them.
- Make deliberate calls on technical debt: when to accumulate it, when to pay it down, when to refactor. Translate trade-offs into language that business leaders can act on.
- Operate to the engineering standards for quality, reliability, and operational excellence.
YOU HAVE
- 10+ years building production web applications across the full stack. The years are the floor, not the bar. What matters is whether you have actually done this: owned a problem end-to-end, written the spec, built the thing, coordinated the work, and shipped it without someone else holding the thread.
- Demonstrated experience gathering requirements directly. You have interviewed users, customers, and partner teams, and turned ambiguous intent into specs that engineers and agents can build against.
- Demonstrated experience owning both functional and non-functional requirements. You have defined what a system must do and held the line on how well it must do it.
- A track record of owning a domain or initiative without close supervision. You have navigated ambiguity, made judgment calls, and been accountable for the outcome.
- Extreme ownership and a bias for action. You do not sit and wait. You chase stakeholders, customers, and answers when you need them.
- Experience coordinating across engineers and AI agents on a shared initiative. You have managed the work without holding a formal management title.
- Strong technical judgment and the depth to catch what AI-generated code gets wrong: not syntax, but correctness, architecture, intent.
- Proficiency with Python and Django. Working knowledge of TypeScript, React, and PostgreSQL.
- Proficiency in developing with AI tools (Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, similar) and the drive to stay ahead of how AI development practices are evolving.
- Domain curiosity. You learn the business context your work supports, not just the systems. You understand why the problem matters, not just how to solve it.
- The ability to communicate clearly across engineering, product, and business, translating technical complexity without losing meaning.
- Low ego and high Emotional Quotient (EQ). You influence without authority, take feedback well, and leave your ego out of technical decisions.
- Experience working with distributed, remote teams.
HOW THIS ROLE WORKS
Product Engineering exists to collapse the distance between a problem and a working solution. You own a problem or part of a vision. You shape it with stakeholders. You build it with AI. You verify it end-to-end. You iterate until the metric moves.
You work within the Context Architecture, a shared system of documentation, design patterns, and domain knowledge that gives you the technical context to make autonomous decisions at every step.
This is not a role for engineers who need to be told how. It is a role for engineers who can take a problem, fill in the gaps with good judgment, and ship something that works.
WHO YOU WILL WORK WITH
- Derrick Franco, Principal Engineer: After teaching himself to code at 13, Derrick went on to co-found Jumpstart in addition to building out the technical divisions at InvestorsAlley and Phinaz Media Group. Nowadays Derrick spends his time reading, with his wife, and working on his podcast The Future of Work Project.
- Julian Prokay, Principal Engineer: A veteran of the SaaS space with experience working on both student systems and construction management software. In his free time, he enjoys history podcasts and fantasy literature.
- Tony Nguyen, Engineering Manager: Tony is an engineering and platform leader with 25+ years of leadership experience at companies like Sony PlayStation Network, Intuit TurboTax, and ServiceNow. He thrives at building products, scaling teams, and leading organizations, but more so building people. He believes the best leadership and engineering comes from bringing your full identity to work. For him that's faith, family, and sports! Outside of work, you can catch him on the couch with his 3 adult children watching anime, going to Disneyland, or having game nights.
- Ron Alexessen, Engineering Manager: With experience at Hewlett-Packard, New Relic, Rackspace, and consulting agencies, Ron has built teams and shaped technical culture across different environments. He's passionate about AI-enabled development as a force multiplier and building solutions that create real business impact. Outside work, he boulders, runs, rides gravel bikes, and co-parents active teenagers, embracing structured chaos in all of it.
- Newton Truong, Engineering Manager: Newton joins Counterpart with 7+ years of experience in platform and data engineering. In his last company Thrive Market, he had a hand in building out new microservices and architecting data pipelines with Airflow and Spark. He's vegetarian and loves trying new restaurants when traveling. Nowadays he's busy keeping up with his 2-year-old and doing outdoor activities with his family.
- John Mendez, Engineering Manager: John has experience working at companies of all sizes. He enjoys startups and small-to-medium businesses, where he can wear multiple hats and help deliver solutions. Outside of work, he stays busy with his four kids and their activities. He also makes time to stay active by working out at home and running or walking with his dog.
COUNTERPART'S VALUES
- Conjoin Expectations - it is the cornerstone of autonomy. Ensure you are aware of what is expected of you and clearly articulate what you expect of others.
- Speak Boldly & Honestly - the only failure is not learning from mistakes. Don't cheat yourself and your colleagues of the feedback needed when expectations aren't being met.
- Be Entrepreneurial - control your own destiny. Embrace action over perfection while navigating any obstacles that stand in the way of your ultimate goal. Leverage AI ruthlessly. We measure success by outcomes, not lines of code written. Use every available AI tool to ship faster and think more strategically.
- Practice Omotenashi ("selfless hospitality") - trust will follow. Consider every interaction with internal and external partners an opportunity to develop trust by going above and beyond what is expected.
- Hold Nothing As Sacred - create routines but modify them routinely. Take the time to reflect on where the business is today, where it needs to go, and what you have to change in order to get there.
- Prioritize Wellness - some things should never be sacrificed. We create an environment that stretches everyone to grow and improve, which is fulfilling, but is only one part of a meaningful life.
WE OFFER
- Work from Anywhere - Counterpart is a fully distributed company, meaning there is no office. We allow employees to work from wherever they do their best work, of course prioritizing meetings that often happen in US time zones.
- Language Classes - We sponsor up to $100 per calendar year to be used towards language classes to help support your English language skills.
- Paid Vacation and Time Off
- Parental Leave - Development Partners will be eligible for unpaid Parental Leave to bond with a newborn, newly-adopted, or newly placed child. Under this policy, development partners and independent contractors will be eligible for up to 8 weeks of unpaid parental leave. Any time off will be subject to approval and must be requested at least 45 days in advance.
- Computer - We reimburse you for your locally procured MacBook Pro. If you are still with the company after one year, it is yours to keep!
Our estimated pay range for this role is USD $90,000 - $110,000 annually. Contractor compensation is determined by a variety of factors, including but not limited to, market data, location, internal equitability, and experience.
We are committed to being a welcoming and inclusive workplace for everyone, and we are intentional about making sure people feel respected, supported and connected at work, regardless of who you are or where you come from. We value and celebrate our differences and we believe being open about who we are allows us to do the best work of our lives.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate against qualified applicants or employees on the basis of race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, sexual preference, sexual identity, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, military status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law, rule, or regulation.
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