Founding Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE
This is the first engineering hire at a pre-seed-funded startup building the infrastructure layer for AI-native service businesses. You will work directly with the solo founder to turn a working, revenue-generating product into agentic infrastructure capable of serving a million users. This role carries a clear path to a CTO seat as the engineering organisation grows around you.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Rebuild a working product into scalable agentic infrastructure that can hold real production load.
- Design and own the agent runtime: orchestration, memory, verification, and the systems that make an AI workforce trustworthy and auditable.
- Own work end to end across backend, infrastructure, frontend, and agent systems.
- Set the technical architecture, the engineering bar, and the way the team builds from day one.
- Ship to real business customers on a weekly cadence.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
- At least 2 years shipping production software, or an equivalent track record as a founder or solo builder. Exceptional earlier-career engineers are explicitly in scope.
- Hands-on experience building and running LLM or AI agent systems in production with real users depending on them. Side projects and demos do not count.
- Full-stack range: able to take work from backend and infrastructure through to the UI without waiting for a specialist.
- Proven ability to turn a working prototype into infrastructure that holds real load, including architecture, data modelling, runtime, and orchestration.
- Has owned technical decisions with no engineering organisation above them, as a founder, early hire, or solo technical lead.
- Founder instincts and founder experience are a strong signal.
- Generalist who goes deep when it counts: agent orchestration, memory, evals, verification systems, or multi-agent workflows are meaningful differentiators.
- Strong CS fundamentals or a track record at a well-regarded engineering company are a positive signal, never a gate.
- Comfortable with the ambiguity and breadth of being the first hire on an in-person founding team.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Base salary: $150,000 to $250,000 USD annually. The range is wide because the right person sets their own number. Meaningful founding equity is included. Relocation support and visa sponsorship are genuinely available for the right candidate.
LOCATION
On-site in San Francisco, CA, United States. The founding team works deliberately in one room. Relocation and visa sponsorship are available for candidates not yet based in the Bay Area.

Employment type
FullTime

Work arrangement
No