Founding Engineer

Recruiting From Scratch•San Francisco, CA

15h•Onsite

About The Position

Our client is building an AI-native collaborative video editing platform designed to bring professional-grade video creation into the browser. The company is building a new generation of video editing software that combines high-performance browser-based editing with AI agents capable of understanding video, brand consistency, and motion graphics workflows. The product is already deployed with major Hollywood studios and has gained traction with professional users, while the company is preparing for a broader consumer product launch. The founding team comes from highly technical backgrounds across MIT, SpaceX, NASA, and frontier software development. The company operates as a small, highly technical team where engineers have significant ownership across product, infrastructure, AI, and performance. As a Founding Engineer, you'll help push browser-based video editing to its limits while building AI-powered editing capabilities and scaling the product toward a much broader user base. This is an opportunity to join a tiny engineering team at a critical product inflection point, where your work will directly influence architecture, product direction, performance, and the future of AI-powered creative software.

Requirements

0–5 years of professional experience in full-stack, product, or software engineering
Strong experience building complex web applications
Experience building products end-to-end with significant personal ownership
Experience with React and TypeScript
Strong Python engineering experience
Experience with a systems programming language such as Rust or C
Experience building performance-sensitive client-side applications
Experience training and deploying machine learning models
Experience working with AI/ML systems in production or advanced projects
Experience at an early-stage startup or founding team strongly preferred
Alternatively, candidates from Big Tech should demonstrate significant impact, ownership, or exceptional side projects
Strong track record of building technically complex products
Experience working across multiple layers of the technology stack
Comfortable operating in highly ambiguous startup environments
Strong builder mentality with demonstrated execution ability
Experience owning projects from concept through deployment
Strong interest in product development and hands-on engineering
Strong React engineering experience
Strong TypeScript engineering experience
Strong Python engineering experience
Proficiency in Rust, C, or another systems programming language
Experience with high-performance web engineering
Experience optimizing frontend performance and responsiveness
Experience with browser-based application architecture
Experience training and deploying ML models
Strong statistical or machine learning fundamentals
Experience building AI-powered applications
Strong understanding of performance, memory, concurrency, and systems architecture
Experience working with APIs and backend services
Strong software architecture and systems thinking
Strong debugging and performance troubleshooting capabilities
Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field preferred
CS or technical degree from a top engineering school strongly preferred
Strong computer science, systems, machine learning, and software engineering fundamentals
Equivalent exceptional practical engineering experience accepted
Exceptional technical ownership
Strong builder mentality
Deep curiosity around AI, creative tools, and emerging technology
Strong analytical and problem-solving ability
Comfortable working with extreme ambiguity
Strong communication skills
Comfortable collaborating directly with founders and customers
High execution velocity
Strong attention to product quality and performance
Bias toward experimentation and rapid iteration
Strong ability to reason from first principles
Comfortable working across frontend, backend, systems, and ML
Low-ego collaborative mentality
Customer-focused mindset
Genuine interest in video editing or creative software
Passion for building products rather than simply maintaining systems
Comfortable working in a very small, high-performing startup team
Willingness to work in-person 5 days per week in San Francisco
Comfortable with a high-intensity startup environment
Willingness to contribute across different areas based on company needs

Nice To Haves

Experience with WebAssembly preferred
Experience with WebCodecs preferred
Experience with SharedArrayBuffer or browser concurrency technologies preferred
Experience with worker pools, Web Workers, or parallel processing preferred
Experience with GPU or video processing preferred
Experience with classifiers, vision-language models, or similar ML systems preferred

Responsibilities

Build and harden a desktop-class video editor that runs entirely in the browser
Develop high-performance client-side systems capable of handling professional video workloads
Build AI agents that understand video editing, brand consistency, and motion graphics
Train and deploy small machine learning models for video understanding and editing workflows
Develop classifiers and vision-language models for AI-powered video features
Optimize video playback, scrubbing, rendering, responsiveness, and overall application performance
Push browser technologies to their limits for demanding creative workloads
Build systems using WebAssembly, WebCodecs, SharedArrayBuffer, worker pools, and GPU/video processing technologies
Develop full-stack product features using React, TypeScript, Python, and systems languages
Design and implement performance-sensitive web applications
Build scalable infrastructure supporting AI-powered video editing workflows
Work across frontend, backend, systems, ML, and product engineering
Collaborate directly with founders to define product and technical direction
Talk directly with customers and users to understand workflows and improve the product
Dog-food the product and continuously identify opportunities for improvement
Ship features end-to-end with high velocity and ownership
Solve complex technical challenges involving video processing, browser performance, and AI
Contribute to architecture and engineering standards across the company
Operate across multiple areas of the stack based on product priorities
Help scale the product from professional creative workflows to a broader consumer audience
Work with a small team where engineers are expected to take significant ownership
Contribute to the upcoming consumer product launch and subsequent product growth

Benefits

Base Salary: $140,000 – $220,000
Founding-level equity: 0.75% – 3%
Opportunity to join a tiny founding engineering team
Significant ownership over product and technical direction
Opportunity to build an AI-native video editing platform from an early stage
Direct collaboration with founders and technical leadership
Opportunity to work across AI, ML, frontend, backend, systems, and performance engineering
Exposure to WebAssembly, WebCodecs, GPU/video processing, and advanced browser technologies
Opportunity to work directly with professional video editors and creative teams
Opportunity to shape the consumer product launch
Visa transfers and sponsorship available
Relocation support to San Francisco
High-impact early-stage startup environment