Protocol Stack Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Downtown Music Publishing is looking for a driven individual to join us as a Full Stack Software Engineer to help build our next-generation music publishing platform from the ground up. You'll help in shaping the architecture, tooling, and engineering culture of a catalog management platform that powers musical work registration, rights tracking, and royalty collection for publishers worldwide. Currently seeking candidates local to the Nashville Area.

What you'll do

• Build a new platform from first principles — data model, API design, and infrastructure — rather than maintaining legacy systems, while making pragmatic decisions that hold up at production scale.
• Design and implement a schema-first GraphQL API (Apollo Server) over PostgreSQL, including multi-tenant data isolation (row-level security), type-safe query layers, and performance patterns like DataLoader batching.
• Develop React/TypeScript (Next.js) interfaces used by both internal teams and clients to manage catalogs, registrations, and data-quality workflows.
• Build AI-native features as a core part of the product: AI-assisted data ingestion and matching, agent-accessible APIs via Model Context Protocol (MCP), and LLM-powered workflows using the Vercel AI SDK and Amazon Bedrock.
• Work in an AI-augmented, spec-driven development workflow — architecture specs, agent-assisted implementation, and rigorous automated review are how the team ships, not an experiment on the side.
• Own components end-to-end: design, implementation, integration testing against real databases, deployment (AWS CDK), and operational responsibility.
• Model and implement music publishing domain logic — works, writers, shares, agreements, and society registration formats (e.g., CWR) — with the precision that financial and rights data demands.

You are / have

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software development, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience developing web-based software solutions.
• Experience architecting new systems or services from scratch — you're comfortable with ambiguity, and you document the "why" behind decisions, not just the "what."
• Strong proficiency in TypeScript and Node.js across the full stack.
• Solid relational database fundamentals: schema design, migrations, transactions, and query performance in PostgreSQL (or similar).
• Experience with both traditional software development lifecycle and agentic software development — including spec-driven development, AI-augmented engineering, and working effectively with coding agents.
• Interest in the music industry — prior experience with rights management, royalties, or metadata standards (CWR, DDEX, ISWC/ISRC) is a plus, not a requirement.

Ideally, significant experience with some of the following technologies or similar tools:

Backend: Node.js, GraphQL (Apollo Server, schema-first), PostgreSQL, etc.

Frontend: React, Next.js, TypeScript, modern state management (e.g., Zustand)

AI/Agents: Vercel AI SDK, SpecKit, CodeX, Amazon Bedrock, Model Context Protocol (MCP), LLM tool design.

Infrastructure: AWS (including CDK), Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions

Testing: Vitest, Testcontainers (integration testing against real databases), Playwright

Observability: Datadog, Sentry, structured logging

Why you want to work here

• Work at the frontier of AI-assisted engineering — agentic workflows are central to how this team builds software.
• Ample opportunities to work with leaders and employees across our business.
• Work in a collaborative environment full of mission-driven, innovative, and passionate people.
• Be a part of an open, welcoming, and inclusive culture.
• Rich benefit program (Medical, Dental, Vision), Life Insurance, 401k (with match).
• Free CitiBike Membership (NYC Only).
• Paid Volunteer Hours.

Ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other is core to Downtown's values. We welcome and encourage all applicants of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives to apply.

Downtown provides base salary ranges for all positions located in the United States at the time of posting. The hiring range for this position up to $150,000 annually. As a candidate for this position, your salary and related elements of compensation will be contingent upon various factors including, but not limited to, work experience, geographic location and relevant skills. Downtown is committed to providing a comprehensive market-competitive total rewards program for its employees which includes medical, dental, and vision, life insurance, 401(k) match and generous paid time off. This range does not include any other variable compensation components.