Founding / Early-Stage Software Engineers
About The Position
Continuum Recruiting is partnering with a portfolio of venture-backed AI and technology companies to find exceptional Founding, Early-Stage, and high-ownership Software Engineers. These roles are for multiple current and upcoming opportunities, not a single specific opening. The companies range from very early founding teams to rapidly scaling startups. Common to all is a need for well-rounded builders who can tackle ambiguous problems, make sound technical and product decisions, and deliver production software end-to-end. Many roles focus on AI-native applications, including applied AI, LLMs, agentic systems, developer tooling, data infrastructure, or AI-enabled vertical software. Other roles are broader product and platform engineering positions where strong software fundamentals and 0-to-1 execution are paramount.
Requirements
- Strong professional software engineering experience with evidence of shipping production systems.
- End-to-end ownership: you can move from an ambiguous problem to a working production solution without requiring a detailed specification.
- Strong backend, full-stack, product engineering, or systems engineering fundamentals.
- Experience with one or more modern production languages such as Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, Java, or Rust.
- Comfort working across multiple layers of a product rather than being limited to a very narrow specialty.
- High agency, strong problem-solving ability, and comfort operating in fast-moving environments.
- A track record of meaningful technical impact, rapid growth, entrepreneurial work, strong startup experience, or other clear signals of engineering excellence.
- Clear communication and the ability to explain technical decisions and tradeoffs.
Nice To Haves
- Founding Engineer, Early Engineer, Product Engineer, Full-Stack Engineer, Backend Engineer, or Staff/Senior Software Engineer.
- Experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup, or evidence that you can operate effectively in a startup-style environment.
- 0-to-1 product or platform development.
- Production AI/LLM or agentic-system experience.
- Python and/or TypeScript/React experience.
- API integrations, distributed systems, data infrastructure, or developer tooling.
- Daily use of modern AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, or similar tools.
- Entrepreneurial experience, meaningful side projects, open-source work, or previous founder experience.
Responsibilities
- Own products, features, or core systems from initial concept and architecture through production deployment.
- Build across the stack, including backend services, APIs, data infrastructure, frontend/product surfaces, and cloud systems.
- Develop AI-native products and workflows using LLMs, agents, tool integrations, retrieval systems, and modern AI development tools where relevant.
- Make pragmatic architecture and product decisions in environments with limited process and incomplete requirements.
- Work directly with founders, customers, and other stakeholders to identify problems and translate them into shipped software.
- Build integrations with external APIs, business systems, data sources, and third-party platforms.
- Establish engineering patterns, tooling, testing, observability, and best practices as teams scale.
- Help shape engineering culture and, in some roles, mentor or lead engineers who join after you.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
