Open Source Engineer

Labs

• Open role

Build the software Lucentive ships in the open.

You build and steward the Labs portfolio: packages and CLIs under LucentiveLabs, cataloged at labs.lucentive.io, from first commit to a release strangers can depend on. You write in public so the repo reads as clearly as it runs.

Remote-first

• EU / CET overlap
• Contract or full-time

Mission

What the role does and why it matters here.

Lucentive Labs is the early-proof space inside Lucentive, and its public face is the software it ships in the open: packages and CLIs under the LucentiveLabs GitHub organization, cataloged at labs.lucentive.io. You build and steward that portfolio end to end, from first commit to a release strangers can depend on, measured against the same bar as the rest of Lucentive: software that survives real users and unclear inputs, not a demo. Because it's public, half the job is writing, the docs, release notes, and decision notes that let someone use what you built without calling you first. You decide what leaves the lab, and keep the repo and the voice behind it worth reading.

Responsibilities

What you would own.

Build the public packages

Build and maintain the public packages and CLIs that ship out of Lucentive Labs, from first commit to a stable public release.

Keep the portfolio accurate

Keep the labs.lucentive.io portfolio accurate: which projects are live, what they do, and what proof is safe to show publicly.

Own the GitHub presence

Own the GitHub presence for LucentiveLabs: issues, outside pull requests, release notes, and the general hygiene of a repo strangers will actually read.

Write in public

Write in public: READMEs, design notes, changelogs, posts, each explaining a decision well enough that someone outside Lucentive can use the software without asking you first.

Enforce the engineering bar

Enforce the same engineering bar the rest of Lucentive runs on: software that survives real users and unclear inputs, not a demo that only works in the one scenario it was built for.

Decide what graduates

Decide what graduates from an internal experiment to a public release, and set the honest proof-limit once it's public.

Cultivate contributors

Respond to and cultivate the outside contributors and users who show up once a project has any public surface at all.

How you think and work

Six traits the work demands.

Pedigree isn't the filter. Disposition is. The six traits below are what the work actually asks of you.

• 01 Agentic intuition

You read agents the way a manager reads a direct report: when to trust the output, when to interrupt the run, when to take the wheel back.

• 02 Critical thinking

Confident-sounding output gets the same scrutiny as anything else, your own work included.

You’ve cut a feature or a claim from a public release because the proof behind it wasn’t as solid as the pitch.

• 03 Curiosity

You pull on threads. You read outside the lane. You follow a question past the first plausible answer.

You read other people's OSS repos for the pattern, not just the README, and you’ve adopted or argued against what you found.

• 04 Agency

You move without being told. You decide, ship, own the call. No one has to write the playbook for you.

You’ve shipped the release, the docs, or the post nobody assigned you because the project needed to be legible to someone outside.

• 05 Systems thinking, long view

You see how the parts connect, and where this goes in three years.

You design a package’s public API knowing the third external user will do something with it you didn’t plan for.

• 06 Leadership instinct

You orchestrate work across humans, agents, and stakeholders. You switch register between a workspace ticket, an architect call, and a senior bank room in the same day without losing what you came in to say.

You set the tone for how outside contributors get treated, and that tone is why they come back.

Useful background

• You’ve shipped and maintained an open-source project that had users outside your own team or company.
• You write documentation and public explanations a stranger can follow without a call, and you’ve done it more than once.
• You’re comfortable owning a public GitHub repo: triaging issues, reviewing outside pull requests, and making the call on what ships.
• You’ve built developer-facing tools, CLIs, SDKs, libraries, rather than only internal or end-user product surfaces.
• You default to writing things down in public rather than keeping the reasoning in your head or in a private channel.
• You’ve grown a following, a community, or a modest user base around something you built and wrote about yourself.
• You’ve maintained more than one small OSS project at once and know the discipline that keeps them from rotting.
• You’ve worked in agent-era developer tooling, agent harnesses, protocol libraries, dev CLIs, rather than only traditional web apps.
• You have a personal habit of publishing, blog, newsletter, changelog, talks, that predates this role.

Pedigree in your exact field isn’t the filter. The disposition above is.

Logistics

How the role is set up.

Location Remote-first. EU/CET overlap of at least four hours on a working day; Portugal hub for occasional in-person sessions.

Engagement Contract or full-time.

Start Rolling, coordinated once fit is confirmed.

Language English (Labs writing is public and in English); Portuguese welcome for internal coordination.