Senior Software Engineer (Early-stage startup)
About The Position
Continuum Recruiting is looking for a Sr Software Engineer with 5+ years of experience building software products. This role requires a strong combination of hands-on development of a product with AI/agentic systems. The ideal candidate will be comfortable owning features end-to-end in a fast-moving, early-stage environment and have a track record of shipping features. Bonus points if you've been a founding or early engineer at a startup. This role offers the opportunity to work directly with the founders, reporting straight to the founding team with a real seat at the table and no layers of management. You will have greenfield backend ownership, architecting and building core systems from scratch with full ownership over technical decisions. The role involves designing and shipping security-critical features like BYOK encryption and access controls for large enterprises. You will also build LLM-powered agents and AI systems that are redefining how enterprises handle contracts, working at the frontier of AI agent technology. The position offers startup energy and ownership with enterprise-scale distribution and resources behind it.
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience in building and shipping production backend systems in a startup or high-ownership environment.
- Strong Python production-level code for ML and Agentic Infrastructure.
- Designed or implemented security-sensitive systems (encryption, key management, auth).
- Built or deployed AI/ML or LLM-powered agents in production.
- Cloud infrastructure experience (AWS or Azure), including DevOps.
- Used JavaScript or TypeScript in a production environment.
- Experience building Agentic systems end-to-end. Understanding Agentic harness MCP and Orchestration well enough to do a Systems Design around them.
- Comfortable translating ambiguous enterprise security requirements into concrete systems.
- Must have worked in a small startup under 100 people; could be as a Founder, founding engineer, or early hire.
- High agency: self-directs, identifies and solves problems independently.
- Willing to work in-office in New York for 5 days/week.
Nice To Haves
- Bonus points if you've been a founding or early engineer at a startup.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and maintain scalable software products and features powered by agentic AI systems.
- Build robust agent workflows that integrate LLMs, APIs, databases, business systems, and external tools.
- Build and deploy AI-powered agents and systems in Python to automate complex contract workflows.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
- Drive end-to-end ownership of features from concept through deployment and ongoing operation.
- Translate product requirements into concrete technical systems and shipped features, working directly with customers and internal stakeholders.
- Establish engineering best practices, tooling, and culture as an early member of a small, high-impact team.
Benefits
- Robust medical (physical & mental vision, and dental benefits
- Employee assistance program (EAP)
- Generous 401K match
- Paid maternity and paternity leave
- Generous holiday and PTO program
- CaaS (coaching as a service)
- Annual personal development allowance
- 7 Days for Humanity – 7 paid volunteer days annually
- Global and regional DEIB steering committees, employee resource groups (ERGs)
- Global DEIB training programs and guest speakers throughout the year
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
