StarSync Studio is building a real-time collaborative DAW. Think Google Docs, but for making music: multiple people in one session, editing patterns, tweaking synths, and hearing changes live, without bouncing stems, zipping project files, or emailing “final_final_v3” back and forth. We’ve been building for over two years and we’re looking for a founding engineer.
Why this, why now
Music-making is already collaborative. Producers trade project files, remix each other’s work, and co-write across time zones every day. But the tools still pretend it’s a solo activity: every major DAW assumes one person, one machine, one project file. “Collaboration” today means file transfers, stem bounces, and version hell. We think the DAW that treats a session as a shared, living space (the way Figma treated the design file) changes how music gets made, the same way multiplayer changed how games get designed.
The technical problems (the fun ones)
- Real-time state sync for multi-user sessions: WebSocket transport, CRDT-style conflict resolution, presence, and sane undo semantics when two people edit the same pattern at once
- The audio engine: C++/JUCE, plugin hosting (VST/AU), MIDI routing, sample-accurate timing, and buffer-level performance work where every millisecond is audible
- The seam between those two worlds: deciding what syncs and what stays local, and keeping two playheads honest when collaborators have wildly different latencies
- Product backend: TypeScript/NestJS, Node, Redis, MySQL. Sessions, auth, project storage, and the infrastructure around the engine
If you read that list and started sketching solutions in your head, that’s the signal.
Where we are
This isn’t a napkin sketch. Over two years of work is already behind this:
- Working software. The core product exists and runs with the basics working. You’d be joining a real codebase and hardening a real sync engine, not starting from an empty repo.
- A real team. Four founders, plus an external VST development team we work with and a UI designer. You’d be the first dedicated in-house engineering hire and the technical center of gravity going forward.
- Early money and commercial signal. A few smaller investors are already in, and we hold three letters of intent. The current push is the pre-seed raise, which is exactly what converts this role from equity-only into equity plus salary.
- A company, not an idea. StarSync Studio is incorporated as a Delaware C-Corp with the equity plumbing done: cap table, ownership modeling, and a five-year financial model. A founding stake here is a real instrument, not a promise.
- Visibility and vetting. We’ve pitched at Web Summit Vancouver and Princeton’s TigerLaunch, gone through 1752vc’s Ignite program and the University of Montana’s Ruffatto Startup Challenge, and our next competition is the Startup World Cup.
- A community waiting. A newsletter of producers and collaborators who want this to exist, and a Kickstarter campaign in the works to grow it.
The role
First dedicated engineering hire, working directly with the four founders (including a founder who produces music and lives this problem daily). You’d co-own the architecture end to end: sync engine, audio engine, backend. This is the stage where the decisions you make simply are the product. Small team, no process theater, direct line to users, and real input on product direction, not just tickets.
You might be a fit if:
- You’ve shipped real-time or multiplayer systems (netcode, collaborative editors, live sync) or serious audio software (plugins, DAWs, DSP)
- You want founding-engineer ownership: equity, ambiguity, small team, direct line to users
- You can show us something you’ve built, whether that’s GitHub, a live product, or a plugin we can download
- Bonus: you make music yourself and have personally felt the pain of collaborating through file bounces
Straight talk on compensation: we’re pre-seed and can’t pay a salary yet. This is an equity-only founding role, a real stake in a company that already has software, users waiting, and a raise in motion, with salary starting the moment funding closes. If you need cash compensation today, that’s completely fair and this isn’t the right fit. If you want genuine ownership of a product you’d use yourself, we should talk.
Location: Remote and flexible, with some weekly overlap with US Pacific time.
How the process works: you email, we do an intro call about what you’ve built and what we’re building, then a small scoped trial task, then a mutual decision. No leetcode, no six rounds of interviews.
To apply: email marley@starsyncstudio.com with a few lines about the most interesting real-time or audio problem you’ve solved, plus links to code or products we can look at. A real note beats a formal cover letter.