About IMG.LY
We're IMG.LY — a fully remote team of ~50 people building the creative editing infrastructure behind modern apps. Our mission is simple: make high-quality design and video editing accessible everywhere, so any product team can ship creative tools their users actually love.
Within that, you'll join a crew of ~30 engineers and designers building creative editing SDKs and embeddable editors. The technical problems are genuinely hard in the best way: real-time rendering, video codecs, and cross-platform SDKs that need to feel native on every device. Our work is trusted by teams at companies like Freepik, HP, and Adobe—so what you build here won't just be technically ambitious, it'll be used in the real world at scale. If you enjoy deep technical challenges and want your work to power creativity for millions of users, you'll feel at home here.
How We Work
We're remote-first across Europe, with a strong async culture and meetings only when they matter. We move fast and ship often, but never at the expense of quality—we take time to do things right. You'll have real decision-making power and minimal oversight. In return, we expect high accountability and honest feedback.
The Role
You'll join our Creative Editor team, making architectural decisions that shape how developers worldwide integrate creative editing into their apps. This isn't an execution role where someone hands you specs—you'll evaluate tradeoffs, propose solutions, and own problems end-to-end from ambiguous problem to shipped solution.
Day to day, you'll work on our CreativeEditor SDK, design APIs that developers love to use (and can't easily misuse), build composable React/TypeScript components, and write documentation that people actually read. We want someone who sees a requirement, figures out the pragmatic path to a solution, and ships working code—without waiting for perfect specs, bikeshedding on patterns, or handing off problems to "the backend team" or "the docs team." You'll write the backend integration if needed. You'll write the docs because you're the expert. And when the SDK hits a limitation that lives in the engine layer? You'll feel confident diving into the engine code (even if it's C++ or WASM) to fix the root cause rather than building workarounds at the SDK level. We want your opinions and your ownership, not just your code.
Who You Are
You have deep React and TypeScript expertise—not "familiar with," but deep enough to inform system design. You've made architectural decisions before: evaluated tradeoffs, anticipated downstream impact, thought about how external developers will consume and extend your APIs.
You can explain technical concepts to engineers outside your stack, to designers, and to product. You're strategic about testing—you know what to test and design for contract stability. You write clear documentation and can justify technical decisions in business terms.
You give honest feedback. You tell teammates when something isn't good enough. Rock stars? Pass. We're looking for thoughtful, kind colleagues who happen to be excellent engineers.
You're fluent with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as a daily productivity multiplier—using them to rapidly prototype approaches in hours instead of days, and accelerate implementation so you can focus your energy on architecture and design decisions. You know how to write effective prompts that get you 80% of the way there (not just "write me a function"), you always verify and test generated code by reading through it and running it against real use cases (not blindly copy-pasting), and you understand how to use AI effectively across different contexts—from speeding up implementation of known patterns to exploring architectural trade-offs, while maintaining critical judgment about what to accept, modify, or reject. You can discuss your AI workflow in interviews—how you use it, when you deliberately don't, and how you validate output before shipping.
Bonus points if you've built SDKs or libraries before, worked with WebAssembly, have strong UI/UX instincts, or contribute to open source.
Our Culture: High Craft, Low Ego
We are product builders who happen to be excellent engineers. At IMG.LY, we value the "why" just as much as the "how."
- Product-Minded Engineering: We don't just ship specs; we solve problems. We expect you to challenge the "why" behind a feature to ensure we're building the right thing for the developers who use our SDKs.
- Engineers for Engineers: Our customers are developers, so we obsess over Developer Experience (DX). We spend our time debating API ergonomics, performance, and documentation quality.
- Collaborative Async: We protect "deep work" but aren't isolated. We love to see each other's faces—whether it's for pair programming, knowledge-sharing demos, or jumping on a call to unblock a teammate.
- Autonomy & Ownership: We hire experts and give them real decision-making power in a high-trust environment that values kindness and radical candor over "rockstar" egos.
Compensation & Location
Competitive salary, plus:
- Permanent contract
- 25 days vacation
- Premium equipment (MacBook)
- Remote work flexibility with quarterly team events
- Annual company retreat (past locations: Portugal, Montenegro, Turkey)
- Monthly co-working space allowance
- Conference and professional growth budget
- Remote within EU, CET timezone (±2 hours). Germany contracts directly; other EU countries via DEEL with equivalent benefits.
Interested?
Tell us about your recent projects and where you're heading. Sample projects matter more than resumes. Send us a short note (and links to relevant work) at hr@img.ly.
We'll start with a 30-minute chat, then a technical discussion, a take-home assignment (4-5 hours max), technical review with future colleagues and the team lead, and finally you'll meet the team.