Founding Engineer – Full Stack

About the Role

A Y Combinator-backed AI startup is looking for a Founding Engineer – Full Stack to join a small founding team at the ground floor. The company operates at the intersection of AI research, product, and engineering — building tools that help brands understand and shape how large language models perceive and represent them. This is a rare opportunity to co-define engineering culture and practices from day one in a fast-moving, high-impact environment.

What You'll Do

• Own problems end-to-end — from customer insight and product requirements all the way through research and infrastructure.
• Maintain a tight feedback loop with customers and the founding team; ship features quickly and iteratively.
• Help define and shape the engineering team's culture, patterns, and best practices.
• Continuously explore and reinvent how engineering teams work effectively alongside AI agents.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 1+ years of experience on engineering teams (2+ preferred), including at least one stint longer than 18 months in a strong startup or scale-up environment.
• Full-stack proficiency — comfortable owning customer-facing UI through to infrastructure.
• Hands-on experience with React, Python, Terraform, and AWS.
• Experience building agentic systems or working with LLMs in production.
• Strong product sense and design instincts; able to translate customer needs into shippable features.
• Startup experience or self-driven personal projects that demonstrate initiative and high agency.
• Must be a US citizen or have US work authorization (no visa sponsorship for candidates outside the US).

Nice to Have

• Scientific or academic research background.
• Direct customer-facing experience in a technical role.
• Enthusiasm for adopting AI-powered coding and productivity tools.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $150,000 – $250,000 USD annually (depending on experience)
• Early-stage equity
• Visa sponsorship available for eligible candidates

Location

This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco.