Nerdy
OpenStaff Engineer (AI-Native) (Full time contractor)
- Location
- Remote - Costa Rica
- Employment type
- Contract, Full-time
- Posted
- May 20, 2026
- Last seen
- Aug 7, 2026
About the role
Overview:
We are looking for a Staff Engineer in LATAM to join the engineering team! In this role, you will set technical direction across both front-end and back-end systems, helping shape the architecture, performance, reliability, and user experience of our learning platform. You will provide hands-on technical leadership across squads, partner closely with Product and Design, and drive the development of scalable, secure-by-default, AI-powered customer experiences.
This is a high-impact role for an engineer who can move fluidly across the stack, from high-traffic user interfaces to high-scale services, while mentoring engineers and raising the technical bar across the organization.
About Nerdy:
At Nerdy (NYSE: NRDY) - the company behind Varsity Tutors - we’re redrawing the blueprint of learning. Our Live + AI™ platform fuses real-time human expertise with proprietary generative-AI systems, setting a new bar for measurable academic impact at global scale.
We recruit the kind of technologists and operators you’d bet on as solo founders - people who turn ambiguous problems into shipping code, iterate faster than markets move, and compound their advantage with every data point. In an era where great employees can deliver 10-times the leverage of the merely good, we back those who play to win.
Fortune favors the bold. Join us.
How we compete:
• AI-Native at every level From the CEO to day-one hires, everyone builds and ships with generative AI. If you’re not wielding AI, you’re not done.
• Entrepreneurial velocity Move at founder speed, prototype in hours, and measure in real user outcomes. Slow teams die.
• Free-market rigor Ideas rise or fall on merit and results - no committees, no politics, no cap on upside.
• Full-stack ownership You design, build, and run what you ship; accountability is a feature, not a bug.
• Reward for contribution Pay rises with impact, not years. Outstanding results earn outsized rewards. We evaluate both what you achieve and how you achieve it: living our leadership principles and using AI effectively are formally measured and rewarded.
• Relentless exploration Push the frontier of generative AI in live learning and - because only the paranoid survive - questioning every legacy assumption along the way.
• Is Apolitical You stay focused on mission-aligned outcomes, not distractions or unrelated causes.
If you’re a technically minded builder who thrives on open competition, personal responsibility, and the chance to redefine how the world learns - while continually stretching the limits of what generative AI can do - come do the most ambitious and rewarding work of your career here. Learn more at nerdy.com .
Nerdy’s shareholder letters below explain our latest products and strategy:
• Q1-2026 Shareholder Letter • Q4-2025 Shareholder Letter
• Q3-2025 Shareholder Letter
Responsibilities
• Technical Leadership: Serve as the technical point of reference for the squad and broader engineering team, ensuring best practices in architecture, performance optimization, and accessibility standards are upheld.
• Solution Design: Lead the design and architectural discussions for systems, making pivotal decisions on frameworks, state management patterns, component architecture, and design systems.
• Code Quality: Advocate for and ensure the delivery of high-quality, maintainable, and scalable code. Conduct regular code reviews and provide mentorship to team members.
• Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements, provide technical insights, and ensure the timely delivery of features.
• Strategy and Vision: Contribute to the engineering department's strategy and vision, bringing innovative ideas to improve our customer-facing experiences.
• Problem Solving: Address complex technical challenges, innovate solutions, and optimize existing systems for scalability and performance.
• Team Development: Mentor and develop team members, helping them to grow in their technical roles and careers.
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