Frontend Engineer (Elm)

About Pulsa

Pulsa is a hardware and software company building the best sensor and telemetry platform in our industry, from low-power wireless sensors that can measure anything to the apps and services our customers rely on every day to run their operations. We refuse to be limited by off-the-shelf implementations, and we never settle for giving customers just what they asked for. Our goal is always the best, the smartest, and the easiest to use, and we know that takes time, effort, and expertise.

To that end, we have built a small, diverse, and technically excellent team to control every aspect of the experience from the sensor to the user. We have been at this for nearly ten years, we are profitable and stable, and our focus right now is scaling a business that works, deepening our position in our existing market and selectively expanding into adjacent ones.

The Role

The Pulsa dashboard is the tentpole of our user experience and the heart of our customers' operations. Whether they are pulling it up on Monday morning to plan their weekly deliveries, or frantically smashing on a Pulsa notification when our sensor has detected a leak, our users rely on the dashboard to make sense of an otherwise overwhelming sprawl of data.

We are looking for a Frontend Engineer to lead the dashboard engineering. This is a sole-contributor role with wide latitude: you will make decisions across technical implementation and product experience, own the quality of what ships, and set the direction of the frontend for years to come. You will work closely with our backend engineers (our API is built in Go) to deliver features end-to-end, and you will be the voice of the frontend in those conversations. And if you are interested in more than the frontend, there is room for that at Pulsa. We are a hardware and software company with a lot of ground to cover, and we have found that the insights of smart people are rarely confined to a limited domain.

The dashboard has been a core part of Pulsa since its first release and has been continuously refined ever since. You will be stepping into a codebase that is a solid foundation for today's business and tomorrow's opportunities, with significant room to grow.

Our Stack and Why Elm

The dashboard frontend is written in Elm, a functional language that compiles to JavaScript. Pulsa adopted Elm from the dashboard's first release in 2017, and the codebase has been refined and polished alongside the language ever since. We believe in strongly typed and opinionated languages, valuing consistency and clarity over infinite flexibility.

We hire for the functional programming mindset, not for any specific language. If you have a strong background in a functional language (Haskell, F#, PureScript, OCaml, ClojureScript, or similar) and genuine enthusiasm for working in Elm full-time, you are a strong candidate regardless of whether you have worked in Elm before. The concepts transfer well and the syntax is learnable. We assess candidates in the functional language of their choice.

What You Will Do

• Own the frontend architecture of the dashboard: make technical decisions, establish patterns, and maintain the quality and coherence of the codebase over time.
• Design and build new features end-to-end, from understanding the product need through to implementation, testing, and deployment.
• Collaborate closely with backend engineers on API design and feature delivery, serving as the primary voice for frontend concerns.
• Grow the frontend alongside the product as Pulsa explores new opportunities and expands into new markets.
• Write code that is clear, maintainable, and built to last. This codebase will be yours to live in.

What We Are Looking For

• 3+ years of experience in frontend or full-stack software engineering.
• A strong functional programming background (Haskell, F#, PureScript, OCaml, ClojureScript, or similar) and genuine enthusiasm for working in Elm full-time.
• Comfort operating as the sole owner of a frontend codebase, including making architectural decisions, managing your own priorities, and knowing when to pull in others.
• Strong communication and product instincts, with the ability to contribute meaningfully to discussions about what we build and why.
• Solid foundational knowledge of the web: HTML, CSS, browser behavior, and performance considerations.

We do not require a degree. We care about what you can do and how you think.

Nice to Have

• Direct experience with Elm, even in personal projects or open source.
• Experience building data-dense UIs: dashboards, telemetry displays, operational tools, analytics interfaces, or real-time and near-real-time data experiences.
• Contributions to the functional programming community, whether through open source projects, blog posts, conference talks, Elm Slack participation, or similar.

How We Work

Our core team is based in San Francisco and works from the office every Monday and Friday. Pulsa maintains a very limited meeting load, concentrated on those in-office days, so that planning and communication happen together and the rest of the week stays free for uninterrupted work. We ask that you make a good faith effort to be in the office on those days, and reasonable exceptions are fine. This role requires Bay Area proximity with the office right next to the Powell St BART station.

Pulsa is a small team by design, which means you will have direct access to everyone with no layers of management between you and the people making product and engineering decisions. We trust every member of our team to own their area.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity
• Excellent employer-sponsored medical, dental and vision insurance
• Holidays + 3 weeks PTO

How to Apply

Apply here on Functional Works or send an email to jobs@pulsasensors.com with "Frontend Engineer" in the subject line. Please highlight your experience with functional programming and Elm specifically, and attach your resume. If you have Elm code, functional programming projects, or open source contributions you would like to share, we would love to see them.