What's the interview process at nRouter?

A 30-minute intro call, a paid take-home project scoped to ~4 hours, and a final team conversation. The whole loop takes about a week end-to-end.

Does nRouter offer visa sponsorship?

We're a remote-first company and hire through employer-of-record services in most countries. We don't sponsor US H-1B visas today.

What's the tech stack at nRouter?

Next.js 16 App Router, TypeScript 5.7, Tailwind CSS 4, Supabase (Postgres + RLS), and a high-performance Rust LLM gateway (nrouter-rust-gateway) deployed on Azure Container Apps with Azure Key Vault.

What's the team culture like at nRouter?

Small team (under 15 people), async-first, high ownership. We ship fast, iterate on real user feedback, and build in the open.

Founding Product Owner

About the role

nRouter is a private, early-stage company building an enterprise LLM gateway providing intelligent routing, rate-card list pricing, and in-path guardrails across every tier.

As our Founding Product Owner, you will own the product lifecycle from initial customer feedback through specification, technical planning, and delivery.

You will work directly with the founder, forward-deployed engineers, and customer technical teams to define features for key management, spend ceilings, prompt management, model catalogs, and live observability.

Compensation structure: 0.25% to 5.0% founding equity accompanied by a confidential base salary unlocked upon hitting commercial and customer milestone releases.

After one year of continuous service you are recognized with co-founder status, and your founding equity matures across a multi-year founding schedule.

You will shape how engineering teams manage high-stakes AI workloads across production environments.

What you'll do

Own the product roadmap, user stories, and acceptance criteria for nRouter control plane and developer-facing features
Engage directly with engineering leaders, CTOs, and enterprise customers to uncover operational bottlenecks and feature requirements
Collaborate closely with core engineering and design to run tight specification, sprint execution, and quality gates
Define, track, and optimize core product KPIs including activation rate, API key retention, and quota utilization
Prioritize backlog items to accelerate revenue-generating enterprise deployments and developer delight

Required experience

3+ years of technical product management or product ownership in developer tools, API platforms, or cloud infrastructure
Strong technical background: ability to read API schemas, inspect HTTP request lifecycles, and discuss architecture with engineers
Proven experience running discovery, defining clear specs, and managing end-to-end releases from concept to customer adoption
Data-informed decision making with proficiency in product analytics, event instrumentation, and customer feedback loops
High agency, resilience, and comfort building in an early-stage, fast-moving founding environment

Nice to have (3)

Hands-on experience with LLM APIs, prompt engineering, or AI infrastructure ecosystems
Prior experience as a software engineer or technical founder
Familiarity with enterprise compliance, SOC2, and multi-tenant billing models

How We Work & Engineering Culture

We build high-concurrency LLM routing infrastructure. We value deep focus, small teams, and engineers who take genuine pride in their craft.

Async-First Remote Philosophy & Deep Work

We protect uninterrupted focus time. We communicate through concise RFCs, PR descriptions, and async issue tracking instead of recurring status meetings.

Rapid Shipping & Continuous Production Delivery

We ship small, continuous improvements. Every engineer has direct access to production traces, telemetry, and automated deployment pipelines.

Zero Bureaucracy & Direct Code Ownership

Engineers own their decisions. If you spot a performance bottleneck or an integration gap, you have the trust and autonomy to ship the fix.

Uncompromising Craft & Systems Rigor

Reliability matters when production money and customer workflows depend on our gateway. We write idiomatic code backed by rigorous automated test suites.

High Talent Density & Continuous Learning

We keep our team small and focused. We support your growth with annual learning budgets, conference sponsorships, and hands-on exposure to frontier models.

Interview & Hiring Process

No whiteboard puzzles or trick questions. Our loop is practical, respectful of your time, and finishes in 5 to 10 business days.

1
Step 1: Application Review & Work Sample Evaluation
We review your application, resume, and public GitHub projects or code repositories within 3 to 5 business days.
2
Step 2: 30-Minute Intro & Recruiter / Engineering Conversation
A 30-minute video conversation to discuss your background, interests, and what we are building at nRouter.
3
Step 3: Technical & Architecture Deep Dive
A code walkthrough of a past project you built or a focused take-home exercise (~3 hours) on realistic systems tasks.
4
Step 4: System Design & Cross-Functional Collaboration
A 60-minute session exploring realistic system tradeoffs and customer scenarios with team members.
5
Step 5: Fast Offer with Transparent Equity & Compensation
We move quickly with transparent terms covering competitive base pay, stock options, and benefits.

Benefits, Compensation & Total Rewards FAQ

Clear, transparent compensation designed to support you and your family globally.

How is cash compensation and equity structured at nRouter?

We provide competitive regional cash base pay plus stock options with standard 4-year vesting and a 1-year cliff.

How does international health coverage and remote employment work?

We hire globally through local EOR partners in 30+ countries, providing statutory benefits and private medical, dental, and vision insurance.

What equipment, home office, and workspace stipends do you provide?

New hires receive an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro, a $2,500 home workspace setup budget, and a $150/month internet stipend.

What is your flexible PTO, vacation, and parental leave policy?

Flexible time off with a minimum of 20 paid vacation days annually, all public holidays, and 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave.

Is there an annual learning, conference, and development budget?

Every team member receives a $2,000 annual budget for attending technical conferences, taking courses, and purchasing technical books.

How are performance reviews and compensation refreshes handled?

We run twice-yearly reviews to align base pay and equity refreshes with your ownership, technical impact, and expanding scope.

Equal Opportunity & Accommodations Commitment

nRouter is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome builders from all backgrounds and non-traditional career paths.

If you need reasonable accommodations at any stage of our interview process, reach out directly to careers@nrouter.ai. Requests are kept confidential and have zero adverse impact on your application.