Careers

Join Holdfast.

We are a small senior team that ships real software on a fixed clock. No rocketship language, no 10x growth talk. Just good engineers doing good work, in the open, on time.

What working here is actually like

You will run sprints. Real ones, for real companies, with your name in the contract and a date you are expected to hit. That is the job, and it is a serious one. We do not hide behind a project manager, and neither will you.

You will use AI tools every day, openly, and you will review every line they produce. We expect judgment, not just speed. The hard parts of this job, the data model, the failure modes, the call about what not to build, are still yours.

You will work across Chicago and India hours, but not at strange times. The overlap window is short and deliberate. The rest of the day is heads-down. We protect that.

There are no junior engineers on client work, so there is no pyramid above you to feed. Every person here is senior, paid like it, and trusted like it. If that sounds like the place you want to be, read the roles.

What we pay

The bands, in the open.

Compensation for Bhubaneswar and remote India, in INR with an approximate USD equivalent. No haggling, no opacity.

Senior Engineer, Next.js and Supabase

₹28,00,000 to ₹42,00,000 per year

approx. 33,700 to 50,600 USD per year

Salary only

Senior Engineer, AI Integrations

₹30,00,000 to ₹44,00,000 per year

approx. 36,100 to 53,000 USD per year

Salary only

Senior Engineer, Backend and Postgres

₹30,00,000 to ₹44,00,000 per year

approx. 36,100 to 53,000 USD per year

Salary only

Founding Engineer

₹36,00,000 to ₹52,00,000 per year

approx. 43,400 to 62,700 USD per year

Plus founding equity

Engineering Operations Lead

₹22,00,000 to ₹34,00,000 per year

approx. 26,500 to 41,000 USD per year

Salary only

How we hire

Four steps. No whiteboard.

A process designed to look at your real work, not your performance under interview theater.
1

GitHub review

We read your real code first. Public repositories, contributions, the work you are proud of. No cover letter gymnastics required.

2

Paid take-home

A focused task, capped at four hours, paid at a real rate. It looks like actual Holdfast work, because it is.

3

Paired session

Ninety minutes building something together with a senior engineer. Not a quiz. The closest thing to a normal working day we can simulate.

4

Founder call

A conversation with Saurav about the work, the model, and whether this is a place you actually want to be. Both directions.

What we will not ask

The things we skip.

  • No leetcode. We do not test you on algorithm puzzles you will never use.
  • No take-home longer than four hours. Your time is worth more than that.
  • No references on the first round. We get to know your work before your network.
  • No whiteboard coding. You will never build production software on a whiteboard.
  • No unpaid work. The take-home is paid, at a real rate.
  • What we will do: read your real code, pay for your time, and give you a straight answer fast.