Ashby (YC W19) Is Hiring Engineers Who Make Product Decisions

Ashby, a Y Combinator–backed startup (YC W19), just posted a role promising engineers the kind of creative control usually reserved for product managers and designers: write specs, make design calls, talk to customers, and do it all in an almost no‑meeting culture. They name‑drop big customers (Notion, Linear, Shopify, Snowflake), boast “tens of millions” in revenue, and say they’re doubling headcount across Europe.

The community? Whew. Half the comments are cheering like it’s Developer Independence Day. Fans love the idea of skipping daily stand‑ups, ditching ticket busywork, and actually solving real user problems. “Finally, a job where engineers aren’t JIRA jockeys,” one dev swooned. Others called it the good kind of accountability, with real ownership and fewer cooks in the kitchen.

But the skeptics came armed. The spiciest take: empowerment or scope creep? Critics argue this is “do three jobs for one paycheck,” citing worries about blurred roles, burnout, and on‑call responsibilities hiding behind the word “ownership.” The pay note—“market rate by location”—triggered a storm of EU‑wide salary speculation, with folks side‑eyeing whether “typical range” means lower pay in cheaper countries. And “we’re always expanding” split the room between “growth!” and “eternal hiring treadmill?”

Memes flew: “No stand‑ups? My knees approve,” “You write the specs, you fix the pager,” and a “this is fine” dog coding in a fire—except the fire is meetings, which are finally gone. Engineering liberation fantasy or cleverly branded extra work? The thread is a battlefield, and the emojis are out.