Full Stack Software Engineer - Growth

The job

LIVE Employer public job feed (private-sector employer) Source: the employer's public careers feed · Data: listed 2026-08-19

Job description

Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the brightest, most interesting, and most creative people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. The terms of our culture should not be set by gate-keeping legacy media or chaos-fueling social media, but by the people who make and participate in that culture. Substack's model, based on direct subscriptions, has fueled an explosion of independent publishing. It empowers creators with economic autonomy, creative ownership, and a direct connection to their most engaged audiences.

As a member of Substack’s Activation team, you will be responsible for building and testing features that bring new readers and creators to Substack and help them succeed and stick around. The team's goal is to help consumers find things they love, and to help creators find an audience and make a living. Engineers work in close partnership with designers, product thinkers, and our users to make it easier and more efficient for Substack’s discovery engines to run.

Responsibilities

• Develop features that help writers make more money on Substack

• Design and run experiments to improve sign-up conversion, first-action completion, and D1 / D7 retention, with particular attention to users arriving from different surfaces (organic search, App Store browse, creator-shared links, paid campaigns)

• Build tools and features to help new creators find an audience and build a publishing habit

• Collaborate with designers, writers, support staff, and many others. From product concept and research to implementation and deployment, we expect you to own your work and operate autonomously.

• We work with TypeScript, especially Node/Express and React, and Postgres. It’s helpful if you know these technologies already; if not, we’ll be excited to help you learn.

Requirements

• At least 3+ years of software engineering experience.

• Independent and autonomous. We’re too small to micromanage, and expect that every person at the company owns their work and can be a leader.

• Hold yourself and others to a high standard when working on production systems.

• Take pride in building elegant and delightful product experiences. Substack works best when it gets out of the way so writers can focus on writing and connecting with their readers.

• Enjoy collaboration with a diverse group of thinkers while bringing our own unique experience and background to the team.

• Believe in Substack’s mission to build a better business model for writing.

Experience at a fast-growing startup or working on a high-performing growth team is not required, but is a plus.

Substack's compensation package includes a market competitive salary, equity for all full time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation salary range for this role is $140,000 - $260,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Substack is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you.

Please see our Privacy Notice for details regarding Substack's collection and use of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking here.

Explore around this job

Field: Technology Sub-niche: Software engineering All jobs at Substack Jobs in California Jobs in San Francisco, CA San Francisco city guide California state guide San Francisco County economy

View this job and apply on the employer's page →

You apply on the employer's page; AtiveSite does not receive or process applications and is not affiliated with the employer. The description above is shown as the source published it.

About the role

This is a — role in the Technology field (Software engineering) at Substack.

We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.

Does the pay work here? (estimate)

How to prepare and behave

This is editorial guidance, not information from the employer.

• Read the whole description and match your examples to its requirements; use the same words the posting uses where they are true for you.
• Research the employer before the interview: what it does, who its customers are and recent news; prepare two or three questions about the work.
• Arrive early (or log in early for a video call), dress one step above the daily dress code, and test your camera and audio beforehand.
• Answer with short stories: the situation, what you did and the result. Give numbers when you have them and never invent them.
• Be honest about gaps; say what you did to learn and how fast you can close them.
• Ask about the team, the first 90 days, how success is measured and the schedule; do not open with salary and time off.
• When pay comes up, know the market range for the occupation and your lowest acceptable offer before you answer; ask for the full package in writing.
• Send a short thank-you message within a day, mentioning one thing you discussed.
• The listing mentions a remote or flexible location. Confirm with the employer whether remote work applies to your state: taxes, licensing and benefits can depend on where you live.
• Have code, data work or projects you can show, and be ready to think aloud: many technical interviews test how you reason, not only the answer.

Know your rights as a candidate and an employee:

• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: prohibited employment practices
• U.S. Department of Labor: Wage and Hour Division
• CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor): job search help, interview tips and resumes
• USA.gov: avoiding job scams

The city

The job is in San Francisco, CA. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.

How San Francisco compares. Among the 145 largest places in California, San Francisco is #4 by population, #139 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #20 for remote work (#1 = most), #25 for college degrees (#1 = most). Its county, San Francisco County, is #3 of 58 counties for average pay ($174,103).

The place in numbers

San Francisco has 830,235 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 2.1% of the population of California. It covers 47 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 17,784 people per square mile. The median age is 40.0, 6% older than the state median (40.0 against 37.9).

Housing

The median gross rent is $2,476 a month (rent plus utilities), 22% above the state median ($2,476 against $2,036). Over a year that is 21.1% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $1,394,500, which is 9.9 times the median household income ($140,970); a ratio above 5 usually means buying is out of reach without savings or a second income. 38.2% of households own their home, 32% below the state average (38.2% against 55.9%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.

Work and pay

The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan area has 2,373,920 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $74,260 a year, 46% above the national median ($74,260 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (226,320 jobs, median $62,120); management (223,100 jobs, median $176,340); business and financial operations (207,030 jobs, median $112,960). The area is most specialised in computer and mathematical (1.9 times) and life, physical, and social science (1.8 times), where the share of workers is well above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($176,340) and computer and mathematical ($167,770). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of San Francisco County was 4.0%. 69.6% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in San Francisco County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.

Getting around

Among workers, 28.6% drive alone, 18.7% use public transit, 9.3% walk, 31.0% work from home. 21.6% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 11% above the state average (21.6% against 19.4%). Remote work is more common than in the state as a whole, which widens the set of employers a resident can work for without moving.

People and education

60.3% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 63% above the state share (60.3% against 37.1%). 34.0% of residents were born outside the United States, 26% above the state share (34.0% against 27.0%). The poverty rate is 11.2%, 7% below the state rate (11.2% against 12.0%).

Climate

The warmest month is Sep, averaging 59°F (14.9°C), and the coolest is Apr at 53°F (11.6°C). About 515 mm (20 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; Dec is the wettest month (112 mm) and Jul the driest (2 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.

Nearby cities to compare

Closest cities in this guide: Daly City (31 miles, rent 3% higher); Pacifica (31 miles, rent 25% higher); San Bruno (34 miles, rent 12% higher); Millbrae (36 miles, rent 32% higher). Rent differences are against San Francisco; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.

Full guide to San Francisco →California guideAll jobs in San Francisco

Official links for San Francisco

• Official website of San Francisco: sf.gov
• Census Bureau data profile for San Francisco
• Official website of San Francisco County: sf.gov
• Official state website: ca.gov
• BLS Economy at a Glance: California

These links go to official sources and open in a new window. The first one is the government's or company's own site as listed in Wikidata (property "official website"); check it before relying on it.

Where to live

CITY Official statistics Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year (via Census Reporter) · Data: ACS 2020–2024

Places within 50 miles (straight line) of San Francisco, CA that have a guide, with what living there costs. No pay estimate is shown because the title did not match one occupation.

Career paths

We could not match this title to one occupation, so here are the other sub-niches in Technology, where your skills may carry over:

Cybersecurity (713) Data, analytics and AI (3366) Cloud, IT and infrastructure (1040) Product management (836)

Distances

CITY Calculation (straight line) Source: U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer (coordinates) · Data: 2024

How far San Francisco, CA is from the 20 largest US cities, in straight-line miles (not driving distance). Click a column to sort.

Nearby cities with open jobs (within 120 miles)

The employer

Substack is the employer in this listing. See all its open jobs here →

We do not hold headcount or revenue for this employer. Check its careers site and, if it is listed on a stock exchange, its public filings (SEC EDGAR search).

What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".

Other open jobs at Substack

Similar jobs

Same sub-niche: Software engineering

More jobs in San Francisco, CA

All Software engineering jobs → · All Technology sub-niches →

FAQ

What is the Full Stack Software Engineer - Growth job at Substack?

A private-sector role in technology (software engineering) listed 82 days ago. The full description is on this page and on the employer's page.

Where is this job?

San Francisco, CA. A remote or flexible location is listed; confirm with the employer which states are accepted.

How do I apply?

Use the "View this job and apply on the employer's page" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.

How much does it pay?

The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.

What is the cost of living there?

Median rent in San Francisco is $2,476 a month and median household income $140,970 (ACS 2020–2024).

How old is this listing?

It was posted on 2026-08-19 (82 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.

Are there similar jobs?

Yes: browse software engineering jobs in California.

Sources and terms

• Job data: Substack careers page public feed (listing dated 2026-08-19). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
• Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
• City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.

AtiveSite is not affiliated with or endorsed by the employer or any government agency, and does not process applications. Verify every detail with the employer before acting.

Sources

• BLS OEWS (wages and employment by occupation, May 2025)
• BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
• BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics
• BLS JOLTS
• BLS State and Metro Area Employment
• Census Bureau American Community Survey (via Census Reporter)
• BEA GDP by state and Regional Price Parities
• IRS 2026 tax adjustments
• U.S. Department of Labor, minimum wage by state
• Tax Foundation state income tax rates 2026
• USAJOBS
• USCIS
• U.S. Department of State, visas
• NASA POWER climatology
• GeoNames / Census Gazetteer (coordinates)