Senior Postgres Developer & Technical Partner — Part-Time Contract

[denuylzach-dev]

Senior Postgres Developer & Technical Partner — Part-Time Contract
Remote · ~6–10 hrs/week · Ongoing retainer · US-timezone overlap required

About the project
We're a Michigan-based residential cleaning company building our own operational software to replace a third-party field-service SaaS (ServiceMinder). It's an internal platform — scheduling, recurring cleaning plans, dispatch, field time-tracking, invoicing, and profitability reporting for our own crews. It is not a consumer app or a venture-backed startup; it's a real business tool that runs a real business, built to a high engineering bar.

The core engine is already built and heavily tested. We're now closing the gap to launch — the point where we can cancel ServiceMinder and run entirely on our own platform.

The role — please read, it's a little unusual
This isn't a heads-down coding gig. The company is owner-operated and non-technical, and most first-draft code is written with AI tooling. We're hiring you to be the senior technical judgment on top of that — the person who:

Reviews what the AI produces, with a security-first eye — you're the human check the AI can't be.
Owns quality on the parts that carry real risk: database migrations, access control (row-level security), and anything touching money.
Builds the harder, higher-stakes features yourself, end-to-end (SQL → API → page → test): payment capture, SMS messaging, payroll export.
Translates technical trade-offs into plain English and flags risks early, so a non-technical owner can make good decisions.
You're a part-time technical partner, not a pair of hands. We care as much about your judgment, trustworthiness, and communication as about raw coding speed.

The stack (please read — it's deliberate)
PostgreSQL is the center of gravity. Business logic — the recurrence engine, pricing, access control, reporting — lives in the database as SQL functions, triggers, views, and row-level security (RLS) policies. If you love Postgres, you'll love this.
Serverless API layer: Node.js functions (CommonJS, no framework) as a thin backend-for-frontend on Netlify.
Front-end: vanilla JavaScript and HTML. No React, no framework, no build step — on purpose. The value is in the data and the API, not the UI.

Schema evolution: plain-SQL, append-only, idempotent migrations. You add the next migration; you never edit an applied one.
Hosted on Supabase (Postgres) + Netlify; Cloudflare Access at the edge.
Who you are
Must have:

Deep PostgreSQL: you've written and debugged row-level security policies, functions/triggers, and you're careful about migrations and privilege grants.
Comfortable in Node serverless functions without a framework, and with hand-rolled auth/JWT.
You store money as integer cents, never floats. You don't hand-roll timezone math when a helper exists.
Self-directed and trustworthy — you work with autonomy, are honest about your hours, and never go dark. (We can't look over your shoulder, and we don't want to.)
You communicate clearly with non-technical people — you explain what's risky and why, and ask the right questions instead of guessing.
A verify-it-works mindset: "done" means tested end-to-end and the real problem is gone — not a green HTTP 200.
Nice to have: Supabase, Netlify Functions, Stripe, Twilio, or field-service / scheduling domain experience.

Not required: React or any front-end framework. This isn't that job.

How we work (and why you might like it)
Most of the first-draft code here is written with AI assistance, and a second AI tool does an automated review pass on every pull request. We're hiring you for the human judgment that layer can't provide — to own the hard, ambiguous, high-stakes parts, to sit in the review seat with real accountability, and to keep the bar high. If working with strong AI tooling as leverage sounds great to you, this is a good fit. If it sounds threatening, it isn't.

The workflow is disciplined and documented: one concern per pull request, one migration per pull request, a nightly automated build/test gate, and a written spec-and-status trail so nothing depends on anyone's memory. We move fast because the guardrails are real.

Logistics
Engagement: independent contractor (1099 or international equivalent), part-time and ongoing (~6–10 hrs/week), cancel-anytime. Think of it as a standing retainer, not a big project.
Rate: competitive, depends on experience and location — tell us your hourly rate.
Overlap: you'll need a few hours of weekly overlap with US Eastern Time for review hand-offs.
First step: a short paid technical exercise before we commit to an ongoing arrangement.
How to apply
Send:

A short note on your Postgres + row-level security experience — a specific example of a policy you designed or a security bug you caught.
A time you flagged a risk a client would have missed, or explained a hard technical trade-off to a non-technical person.
Links to work you can share (GitHub, a project, anything real), your hourly rate, and rough weekly availability.
Please include the word "cascade" in your reply so we know you read this. Applications that pitch us on rebuilding the front-end in React will not be a fit.

Posting-channel variants (internal note — remove before posting)
GitHub Jobs Board / Supabase / Reddit: paste as-is; markdown renders. Keep the "cascade" screener.
Upwork / Contra / Lemon.io: lead with "part-time ongoing retainer (~6–10 hrs/wk)" and the rate line; trim "About the project" to two sentences; keep the "cascade" screener.
LinkedIn / direct outreach / referrals: keep the full length; add the company name and your name for legitimacy; drop the "cascade" screener (reads oddly in a DM) and ask the Postgres/RLS + risk-flagging questions directly. Referrals are your best source for a trusted partner — lean on them.
Toptal / Gun.io / Braintrust: paste "The role" + "Who you are" into their role template.
Anonymity: you can post without the company name (use "a Michigan-based cleaning-services company").

[k1ng-arthur]

I would also suggest posting this in Supabase discord as there is a jobs channel in there which might also be helpful and potentially more active than this?

[denuylzach-dev]

thank you

[AliLee0923]

Hi! I'm interested in the opportunity.

Cascade.

I'm a Senior Full Stack Engineer with 9+ years of experience building SaaS platforms using PostgreSQL, Supabase, Node.js, and TypeScript.

Regarding PostgreSQL and RLS, one project I'm particularly proud of involved designing a multi-tenant architecture where Row-Level Security policies isolated tenant data while allowing administrators controlled cross-tenant access. I also implemented SQL functions, triggers, role-based permissions, and append-only database migrations to ensure security and maintainability.

A risk I identified on another project involved authorization being enforced only in the frontend. I recommended moving access control into the database using RLS and backend validation, preventing unauthorized access that would have been possible through direct API calls. I explained the security implications to a non-technical stakeholder and proposed a safer implementation before launch.

I enjoy working in environments where AI accelerates development but human engineering judgment is responsible for security, architecture, and production quality.

Rate: $70/hour
Availability: 8–10 hours/week with US Eastern overlap.

Portfolio: https://alilee.vercel.app

I'd be happy to complete the paid technical exercise and discuss how I can contribute to the project.