About the company

Our client is an early-stage, venture-backed AI startup in San Francisco building AI agents that run the back-office and operational work inside mission-critical government and defense units. Their platform ingests systems of record, standard operating procedures, and institutional guidance into a knowledge graph, then runs vertical agents for scheduling, training, deployment packages, notifications, and reporting. The problem is concrete: personnel in these units spend eight to ten hours a week doing readiness admin by hand in spreadsheets and slide decks. Founded in 2024, the company raised a $2.5M pre-seed from defense-focused funds and angels, is seven people today, and is launching with its first four customers. Engineering is the CTO plus one founding engineer.

The role

You'd own end-to-end full-stack development of the core platform in TypeScript — the knowledge graph, the agent workflows, and the customer-facing features built on top of them. A meaningful share of the work is customer-driven: you'd sit with military users at their sites, turn mission needs into production code, and mature the AI orchestration layer so customers can eventually configure their own agents and workflows. The platform is already production-capable, but there is a great deal of net-new to build. The role expects product-minded autonomy — dissecting and prioritizing feedback, abstracting it, and deciding how it fits the platform rather than building to spec. Expect to travel to bases roughly once a month, mostly around 45 minutes outside San Francisco, with occasional national travel once or twice a year. You'd report to the CEO and co-founder. They are hiring two engineers at this level, with no reporting line between them.

What you'll do

Own end-to-end full-stack development of the core platform in TypeScript — knowledge graph, agent workflows, and customer-facing features
Support customer launches: sit with military users on site and turn mission needs into production code
Mature the AI orchestration platform so customers can configure their own agents and workflows
Dissect and prioritize customer feedback, abstract it, and decide how it fits the platform
Split your time between customer-driven work and core platform engineering
Travel to military bases roughly once a month, mostly local to the Bay Area

What we're looking for

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

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.

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Nice to have

Defense tech startup experience — the single strongest plus for this client
A military service background
Kubernetes, plus LLM or agent work running in production
Reputable big tech experience paired with startup experience
Side projects that show initiative and a shipping instinct
A CS, math, physics, or engineering degree — self-taught is fine with strong projects

Tech stack

TypeScript, Next.js, Express
PostgreSQL
AWS and Kubernetes
Grafana, Loki, Keycloak
LLMs and agent orchestration

Compensation & logistics

$160k–$210k base, with flex toward roughly $230k for exceptional profiles once contracts close
0.5–1.5% options on standard vesting, with re-up potential at 6 to 12 months
On-site 5 days/week in downtown San Francisco — this is strict
Relocation package available; 1 to 2 months to ramp is fine
US citizens only. This client cannot accept any visa, and a Green Card is not sufficient for this role.
Travel to bases roughly once a month, mostly local to the Bay Area
Reports to the CEO and co-founder
Full-time · hiring 2 for this role

Founding Engineer