unbeholden

Senior / Staff Software Engineer | Backend, Full-stack, Platform

Location: Czechia (EU, CET)

Remote: Yes (EU/EMEA, open to B2B contracts)

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, React, Go, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, OpenTofu, GitHub Actions

Résumé/CV: https://unbeholden.dev/cv.pdf

Email: jakub@kot.lt

Software engineer with eight years of experience at remote startups. I've built products from scratch, led a team of eight engineers, and owned architecture, infrastructure, deployments, and production operations.

Most recently, I led engineering for a Bitcoin commerce platform supporting five payment methods, including Lightning. Previously, I built real-time messaging products at Momence and helped launch Crave Delivery at OAK'S LAB.

Outside of commercial work, I build open-source Bitcoin and Lightning tools, maintain self-hosted infrastructure using Ansible, OpenTofu, and Kubernetes, and develop agent tooling, including a multi-agent PR reviewer with isolated development environments.

Looking for a Senior, Staff, Platform, or Founding Engineer role with substantial technical ownership. Available immediately.

GitHub: https://github.com/unbeholdendev

Blog: https://unbeholden.dev

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubkot/

Location: Czechia (CET)

Remote: Yes, remote only

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL, React, Go, Rust, Bitcoin/Lightning (LND, LDK, LNURL), Ansible, GitHub Actions, Claude Code and agent-driven workflows

Résumé/CV: https://unbeholden.dev (Happy to provide actual one on demand)

Email: jakub@kot.lt

Staff engineer who runs engineering at a Bitcoin commerce startup: payments infrastructure, CI/CD and observability, end to end. Before that I built the inbox (messaging) at Momence and have spent eight years fully remote at early-stage companies, usually as the person who turns a vague product idea into something customers pay for.

Things I’ve shipped that you can look at:

Skorpik (https://skorpik.app): B2B sports prediction league that runs inside Slack. Built and operated solo.

Lightning payment-handler spec for the Universal Commerce Protocol.

An LNURL server (https://git.unbeholden.dev/unbeholden/lnurl-server) and a public Forgejo instance I run myself.

An AI PR reviewer used in production.

I work with coding agents as a normal part of the day, not as a demo, and I’m most useful where infrastructure, architecture and AI meet.

Looking for: founding engineer, CTO or technical co-founder at a small team where I own real decisions. Happy to join a founder who has a committed idea and needs the technical half. Not interested in process-heavy orgs, pure maintenance work, or crypto projects where the product is the token.

Pre-AI, I definitely had more deep work and focus. I must say I miss it. Now much more ground is covered but also I don't go under the surface as much.

Thanks for your reply. Yes I consider HN a social media. I like to read through it from time to time but being introvert in real life I also don't have the urge or need to comment on what I read.

I really like the idea of adding comment section to my blog posts.

I'm adding the link to my profile as well.

I'm curious to learn how you handle the fact that your app can read anything a user types from the privacy point of view?