Founding AI Engineer

Rockstar•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

The client is a market infrastructure company accelerating commercialization of clean energy and industrial technologies. Its AI-native platform connects energy suppliers with hyperscalers and data center developers, automating site screening and diligence so both sides can move from evaluation to signed agreements faster. The company focuses on clean, reliable electricity for industry and data centers, and has already closed deals and facilitated connections between data center developers and clean energy projects. The Founding AI Engineer will build the core intelligence layer of the product and take high ownership and technical leadership in a founding engineering role. Working directly with the founder, this person will shape technical direction, establish engineering standards, and help lay the foundations for the engineering organization. The work includes automating structured contracting, extracting insights from messy data and compliance documents, and supporting smarter purchasing decisions. The role calls for strong GenAI and agent-systems experience, including LLM orchestration, retrieval, and tool use, alongside backend skills in Python or TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, and security. The engineer will translate energy procurement workflows into usable software, prototype quickly, and ship production-ready systems. The position requires autonomy, clear prioritization and milestones, and comfort with startup volatility and co-founder-level responsibility.

Requirements

Strong GenAI and agent-systems experience, including LLM orchestration, retrieval, and tool use.
Solid backend engineering skills, including Python or TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, and security.
Familiarity with AI engineering, agents, harnesses, vector databases, and orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or LlamaIndex.
Strong engineering skills and ability to take projects end-to-end while making sound technical tradeoffs.
Experience shipping products to real users and working directly with customers to translate workflows into product.
Experience setting direction and providing leadership and mentorship as a team grows.
Ability to work autonomously, prioritize ruthlessly, set clear milestones, and adapt to ambiguity and changing needs.
Care about usability and building impactful products.
Comfort with startup volatility and co-founder-level responsibility.
High agency and end-to-end ownership, collaboration, a low-ego and team-first approach, compassion, and comfort creating structure amid ambiguity.
Deep motivation by climate impact and enthusiasm for building a company and product from zero to one.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of power markets.
AWS or GCP experience.
Unit-economics modeling experience.
Experience with contracts, procurement systems, or trading.
Enjoys team hikes and bike rides.

Responsibilities

Own technical strategy and execution, including architecture and plans for the data model, AI systems, infrastructure, and security.
Write production code and establish quality standards for testing, code reviews, and observability.
Design and ship agentic workflows to help data center developers contract, diligence, and close large sites and contracts more quickly.
Build product features end-to-end by translating procurement and project finance workflows into usable software.
Work directly with users, including forward-deployed product work, and iterate in real time.
Build data engineering and geospatial pipelines to ingest and enrich datasets, including EPA GHGRP, EIA, NREL, parcel data, and utility filings, covering grid access, substations, transmission, and land availability.
Work closely with the founder on product-market fit through user conversations and rapid engineering iteration.
Automate structured contracting, extract insights from data and compliance documents, and support purchasing decisions.