Founding AI Engineer

Rockstar•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

The client is hiring a founding AI engineer to build the core intelligence layer of an AI-native platform connecting energy suppliers with hyperscalers and data center developers. The platform automates site screening and diligence to help users move from evaluation to signed agreements faster, supporting clean energy and industrial technology commercialization. This is a high-ownership founding role with technical leadership responsibility. The engineer will shape technical direction, establish engineering standards, and help lay the foundations for the engineering organization. Working directly with the founder, the engineer will automate structured contracting, extract insights from messy data and compliance documents, and support smarter purchasing decisions. The role involves translating energy procurement workflows into usable software, prototyping quickly, and shipping to production. The ideal candidate brings experience with GenAI and agent systems, including LLM orchestration, retrieval, and tool use, alongside backend engineering skills. They work autonomously, prioritize effectively, set clear milestones, and are comfortable with startup ambiguity and volatility. The company is backed by leading climate investors, has closed deals, and has facilitated connections between data center developers and clean energy projects.

Requirements

Experience with AI engineering, agents, harnesses, vector databases, and orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or LlamaIndex.
Strong engineering skills and the ability to take projects end-to-end while making sound technical tradeoffs.
Experience shipping products to real users.
Experience working directly with customers to translate workflows into product.
Adaptability and comfort embracing ambiguity and pivoting as needed.
Experience setting direction and providing leadership and mentorship as a team grows.
Strong GenAI or agent systems experience, including LLM orchestration, retrieval, and tool use.
Solid backend skills, including Python or TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, and security.
Motivation by climate impact and enthusiasm for building from zero to one.
Ability to work autonomously, prioritize effectively, and set clear milestones.
High agency and end-to-end ownership, collaboration, a low-ego team-first approach, compassion, and comfort creating structure amid ambiguity.

Nice To Haves

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

Responsibilities

Set technical strategy and execution, including architecture and plans for the data model, AI systems, infrastructure, and security.
Write production code and establish quality standards through testing, reviews, and observability.
Design and ship agentic workflows to help data center developers contract, diligence, and close large sites and contracts more quickly.
Build end-to-end software features that turn procurement and project finance workflows into usable products.
Work directly with users, iterate in real time, and support product development in a forward-deployed capacity.
Build data engineering and geospatial pipelines to ingest and enrich datasets, including EPA GHGRP, EIA, NREL, parcels, and utility filings, covering grid access, substations, transmission, and land availability.
Work closely with the founder to pursue product-market fit through user conversations and rapid iteration.
Help shape technical direction and provide leadership and mentorship as the team grows.