Senior Desktop Engineer

Senior Desktop Engineer (Electron / TypeScript) — Well-Funded AI Start-up

Location: UK, remote

Full-time

About the Opportunity

I am currently partnering with an exceptionally well-funded AI start-up ($100M) that is building the next generation of proactive, AI-native personal productivity software.

There are over 5 billion people using basic daily applications—email, notes, tasks, calendars—that were never built for the AI era. This team’s mission is to build proactive, AI-native applications for a global audience, eliminating the need for complex prompting. They are bringing intelligence directly into conversations, daily errands, personal organization, and complex workflows.

Their product focuses on high reliability for long-running workflows, persistent context, and real-world task completion—dramatically reducing model hallucinations through smart, stateful system design. With significant backing from premier investors, they are scaling a high-density engineering team to organize everyday life for millions.

The Role

As a Senior Desktop Engineer, you will own how this system behaves natively on desktop environments (macOS & Windows). You will build, optimize, and maintain the primary client interface users interact with daily. Your work will focus heavily on client-side reliability, rapid performance, low memory footprint, and real-time backend/AI integration.

Core Responsibilities

• Desktop Application Development: Architect, build, and maintain cross-platform desktop applications using Electron, TypeScript, and React.
• Native OS Integration: Implement desktop-specific functionality including file system access, native notifications, background processing, auto-updates, and deep linking.
• AI & Real-Time Feature Integration: Connect backend APIs, AI agents, and streaming LLM outputs into responsive, low-latency UI interfaces.
• Performance & Optimization: Profile and optimize start up times, memory usage, and runtime efficiency to minimize Electron overhead.
• State & Data Management: Efficiently manage large local state, offline caches, and extensive message histories across client sessions.
• Real-Time Collaboration: Ensure smooth real-time transport (messages, typing indicators, presence) using WebSockets and asynchronous IPC communication.
• Cross-Platform Stability: Ensure production-grade stability and seamless experiences across macOS and Windows operating systems.

What We Are Looking For

• Proven Track Record: Production experience building, shipping, and maintaining scale desktop applications using Electron.
• Core Tech Stack: Strong proficiency in TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, and modern UI frameworks (React or similar).
• Desktop Architecture: Solid understanding of the desktop application lifecycle, main/renderer process isolation, and secure IPC communication.
• Local Persistence: Practical experience with local storage solutions (SQLite, IndexedDB, or direct file system access).
• Real-Time Systems: Experience integrating WebSockets, Server-Sent Events (SSE), or similar real-time transport mechanisms.
• Performance Profiling: Strong debugging, memory leak analysis, and performance profiling skills using Chrome DevTools or native OS profilers.
• OS Mechanics: Familiarity with native OS behaviours, window management, and permissions on macOS and Windows.

Tech Stack

• Core: Electron, TypeScript, Node.js, React
• Persistence: SQLite, IndexedDB, SQL & NoSQL
• Transport & APIs: WebSockets, REST, Async IPC

Culture & Team

The company operates as a small, high-density team that values high talent density, rapid iteration, and direct execution. They make decisions collectively, move at fast speeds, and strike a balance between shipping high-quality code and learning quickly. Joining this team requires bringing structure to ambiguity, exercising sharp engineering judgment, and executing independently.