Founding Engineer, ML + Full-Stack

Autostep • San Francisco, CA

11d • $100,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Autostep is seeking two founding engineers to help turn customer pull into exceptional, repeatable customer results. The role involves working across machine learning, full-stack product, forward deployment, and desktop systems. This is a challenging position where you will work directly with mid-market and enterprise customers, ship frequently, and navigate ambiguous, incomplete, and sometimes incorrect requirements. Your primary responsibility will be to bring structure to this ambiguity, determine the essential features to build, and deliver them effectively.

Requirements

• Driven real outcomes through things you’ve built or shipped and can show us what changed because of your work.
• Strong Python.
• Applied ML, algorithms, evals, agents, LLMs, data systems, systems design, desktop software, UI/product taste, and enterprise infrastructure.
• Ability to learn unusually fast.
• Can talk to customers, explain technical systems clearly, test assumptions, and question bad ones.
• When something goes wrong, you investigate, communicate clearly, and find a path forward.
• Shipped work matters more than degrees.

Nice To Haves

• TypeScript
• React/Next.js
• AWS
• Supabase/Postgres
• Electron
• Rust
• Vercel
• GitHub
• modern AI coding tools

Responsibilities

• Build and improve our data + ML pipeline across accuracy, context, speed, evals, algorithms, agents, and cost.
• Ship new projects, product surfaces, UI, experiments, and features constantly. Small projects and improvements should be able to ship daily.
• Improve our existing Mac/Windows desktop app across reliability, performance, deployment, and new capabilities.
• Work directly with customers to clarify messy requirements and environments, question assumptions, define the actual problem, and create as much value as possible.
• Turn lessons from individual customers into repeatable product improvements that make the next deployment better.
• Keep engineering clean as you move quickly: requirements, PRDs, Linear, documentation, tests, decisions, and deadlines should stay current.
• Use AI coding aggressively.

Benefits

• $100K in LLM/model/compute credits to help improve the product.
• Additional model, developer, and startup benefits.
• Occasional access to invite-only founder/startup events.
• Surfing when time and conditions permit.
• A chance to learn deeply across applied ML, AI systems, product, enterprise infrastructure, and some genuinely unusual technical problems.
• Work directly with the founder at a company backed by YC and Neo.
• Work alongside investors who advise us, including Walden Yan (Co-Founder, Cognition, $26B), Erik Goldman (Co-Founder, Vanta, $4B), Charles Mourani (Co-Founder, Cherry, $2B), Kabir Barday (Co-Founder, OneTrust, $4.5B), and Kunal Shah (CEO of WhatsApp; Co-Founder, CRED, $4.5B), alongside other reputable enterprise founders and co-founders.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed