Founding Engineer, AI — Shiplight AI

Pear VC • Austin, TX

42d • Hybrid

About The Position

At Shiplight AI, our mission is to build the foundation for enterprise-scale automation powered by intelligent agents. We believe every organization should have AI systems that can understand context, take action, and collaborate seamlessly with humans — transforming how work gets done across the enterprise. Our first mission: fully automate software quality assurance. We’re building state-of-the-art agentic QA systems that integrate deeply into the software development cycle — empowering every product manager, developer, and tester with their own AI QA engineer that validates work in real time. You’ll be joining a small, mission-driven founding team led by industry veterans, working at the intersection of AI agents, system engineering, and real-world developer productivity.

Requirements

• Mission-driven — you want to help shape the next era of AI-powered software development.
• Curious and resourceful — you love solving hard, open-ended problems.
• Hands-on builder — you thrive in early-stage environments with high speed and uncertainty.
• Collaborative — you value teamwork and open technical debate.
• You have 1–3 years of startup experience in the AI domain.
• You’re eager to grow into a technical leader and make a massive impact early.
• Strong engineering fundamentals and product mindset.
• Proficiency in Python and TypeScript.
• Deep understanding of context engineering and prompt-based reasoning systems.
• Comfortable working across the stack — backend, frontend, and AI interfaces.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with browser automation, mobile automation, or QA tooling is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Build core systems that enable AI agents to autonomously test and reason about complex applications.
• Design, prototype, and ship agentic browser and device automation components.
• Work directly with the founders to define architecture, roadmap, and company culture.
• Experiment with cutting-edge context engineering techniques to improve reasoning and adaptability.
• Move fast — from prototype to production — with high ownership and autonomy.

Benefits

• Join at the earliest stage as the first founding engineer.
• Shape both the product and technical vision.
• Work directly with founders who’ve built successful systems and products before.
• Receive generous equity and play a defining role in the company’s success.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees