Job Description

Instrument is a digitally native design and technology company built to help brands unlock their full potential. Since 2005, our team of makers, thinkers, and storytellers has partnered with leading brands like Google, Nike, Uber, ŌURA, and Eventbrite to craft digital experiences that create impact and drive results.
Unlike traditional agencies, we don’t just design—we build. Our work lives at the intersection of taste and technology, powered by curiosity, thoughtful curation, and a commitment to delivering the most fitting solution for every brief. We bring this to life across three core offerings: Brand, Marketing, and Product.
As a member of our freelance network, you’ll collaborate with our teams to bring bold ideas to life—whether launching new brands, building digital products, or shaping experiences that move people. We welcome collaborators from all backgrounds and experiences who share our curiosity, creativity, and care for craft.
We believe great work comes from diverse perspectives and shared purpose. If you’re passionate about learning, experimenting, and making work that matters, we’d love to hear from you.

The Project: We are developing a highly complex, stateful, multi-agent simulation engine driven by generative AI. This is a greenfield project exploring new forms of non-linear, narrative-based user interaction at scale. Unlike typical stateless web apps, this system requires a dynamic, real-time frontend that can handle persistent "memory" and evolving session states for thousands of concurrent users. We are building an architecture where multiple AI agents orchestrate complex logic on the backend, and the frontend must elegantly reflect that state and latency to the user.

The Role: You will serve as the Technical Director, responsible for driving the technical vision, quality, and execution of this project. While this is a brand-new application, you won't be starting from a completely blank slate. Our architecture team has spent the last 10 weeks establishing a robust backend foundation, defining core services, and proving out the initial generative AI architecture. You will be stepping in at a pivotal moment to take the helm just as the full engineering team (Backend, Frontend, and AI Engineers) ramps up. Your focus will be on guiding this team, scaling the established foundation, and driving the project to a successful, polished launch.
This engagement runs from 6/1–10/9 at 40 hours/week, with the intention to convert to full-time if it’s a strong mutual fit.

What You'll Do

What You'll Bring

Pay Range

The expected contract pay range for this role is $113-130 per hour (on a W-2)
The expected full time pay range for this position is $150,000 - $180,000.
Both contract and full time compensation is determined by location, experience, and skillset We have three regional pay ranges that are adjusted for cost of living (US1 +15%, US2 +7.5%, US3 Base), *learn more about our pay philosophy and cost of living adjustments.