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.