Founding AI Engineer
About The Position
Our client is an early-stage, venture-backed AI startup building the next generation of “AI coworkers”—autonomous systems that can own and execute entire business workflows end-to-end. Unlike traditional AI tools that assist users, their platform is designed to replace operational work by orchestrating multi-step processes across systems. Founded by experienced operators who previously scaled enterprise teams at leading AI companies, the company is working with top-tier design partners and is rapidly building out its founding engineering team to define this new category.
Requirements
- 3–10 years of software engineering experience
- Proven experience building production AI systems (agents, not just RAG/chatbots)
- Strong proficiency across the stack (backend + frontend as needed)
- Experience working in early-stage startups or high-ambiguity environments
- Deep understanding of LLM limitations (hallucination, state, reliability) and mitigation strategies
- Strong product mindset with ability to define and build solutions end-to-end
- High ownership, strong opinions, and ability to operate independently
Nice To Haves
- Experience building multi-agent or autonomous systems with real-world impact
- Experience at top-tier AI or product-first companies (e.g., OpenAI, Scale AI, Notion, Retool)
- Background as a founder or early engineering hire
- Experience with workflow orchestration systems or event-driven architectures
- Familiarity with GTM tools (Salesforce, Slack, Outreach, etc.)
- Strong academic background in Computer Science or related field
Responsibilities
- Build core agentic systems that automate complex business workflows end-to-end
- Design and implement multi-step AI agents with memory, reasoning, and orchestration
- Work across the full stack (frontend, backend, and infrastructure) to ship product features
- Partner directly with founders and customers to define product direction
- Solve hard problems around reliability, hallucination, and system trust at scale
- Build integrations across enterprise tools (CRM, communication, and workflow systems)
- Own product surfaces from concept to production deployment
- Help define engineering standards, architecture, and team culture as a founding member
Benefits
- Competitive base salary: $230,000 – $300,000
- Founding-level equity: ~0.5% – 5% (depending on experience)
- High ownership and direct impact on company trajectory
- Work directly with experienced founders from top AI companies
- Opportunity to define a new category in AI (agentic workflow automation)
- Hybrid work in San Francisco with a small, high-caliber team
- Fast, founder-led hiring process
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
Number of Employees
1-10 employees
