Founding Engineer

AI Startup for the Offline Economy • New York City (On-site)

Location

New York City (On-site, 5 days/week)

Compensation

$150k–$250k base + 0.5–2% equity

About the company

Our client is building AI-native systems for the offline economy, starting with consumer packaged goods (CPG) — a $4.5T industry that's uniquely data-rich but hasn't been able to capture the benefits of AI yet. Founded by top math/science Olympiad competitors from MIT who led engineering teams at Nuro, Meta, and Glean, and led investments at Blackstone and Marshall Wace across the physical economy — which is where they saw this problem firsthand. Backed by premier Silicon Valley investors. Team of 3 today — you'd be one of the first employees.

The role

You're a generalist who's comfortable working across the stack — from backend data infrastructure to customer-facing product — and thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving environments. You'll work directly with customers to understand business objectives and build both the underlying platforms and the outcome-oriented agents that transform how physical brands operate across finance, sales, and operations. A rare chance to shape both the product and the culture from the ground floor.

What you'll do

Build and deploy harness evaluation platforms to create fast feedback loops around product outcomes
Build foundational data infrastructure — single- and multi-tenant hosting models — at terabyte scale
Own end-to-end delivery of production agents for marquee customers
Design a reinforcing context layer that captures how companies operate internally
Help define the culture and operating bar for the team and product

What we're looking for

These are hard requirements. Check each one that applies to you.

3+ years of full-stack/backend engineering experience, across both server-side (Python, Go, Java, or Rust) and client-side (TypeScript)
I've defined and delivered cross-stack technical designs at an early-stage, high-growth startup
Sharp trajectory — fast promotion to senior/staff level
Fluent in AI-native development (Claude Code with workflows/loops/MCPs, Devin, or similar)
Top-30 CS degree (MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, etc.), or an exceptional self-taught trajectory
Can work in-person in NYC, 5 days/week
US work-authorized — no visa sponsorship available

Please note: every item above is a hard requirement for this role. Applications that don't meet all of them will be rejected. We recommend applying only if you check every box.

Don't check every box? No worries — submit your info here and we'll keep you in mind for roles that could be a better fit.

Submit Your Info

Nice to have

Sharp trajectory — fast promotion to senior/staff level in a prior role
Data pipeline or extraction systems experience
Strong debugging intuition across production environments
Comfortable translating ambiguous customer problems into technical solutions

Tech stack

Python, Go, Java, and Rust on the backend; TypeScript and Next.js on the client; GCP and Terraform for infra.

Compensation & logistics

$150k–$250k base + 0.5–2% equity
New York City — in-person 5 days/week (lunch and dinner provided)
~$10k relocation assistance available
No visa sponsorship — must be US work-authorized

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