Founding Engineer -- Confidential (AI Startup, YC/a16z-Backed)

Job Description

Job DescriptionFounding Engineer — Confidential (AI Startup, YC/a16z-Backed)

Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite, 5 days/week)
Compensation: $180,000 – $225,000 base + 1.0% – 1.5% equity
Visa Sponsorship: Available — visa transfers supported | Relocation support available
Employment Type: Full-Time

About the Company

A well-funded AI startup building a new paradigm for software creation — using AI agents to autonomously create and operate specialized software products at scale. Founded in 2026, the company has raised $5.5M from a16z and other top-tier investors and is building out its founding engineering team of 5–7 engineers. The founding team has previously scaled companies to $20M ARR.

The Role

This is a founding engineering role for a generalist full-stack engineer who loves building from zero. You will ship micro apps weekly to real users, encode your processes into increasingly automated workflows, and run rapid experiments with the founding team. All engineers report directly to the founder and CEO.

What You'll Own

• Build and ship micro apps every week with real users, encoding your processes into increasingly automated workflows
• Work in close collaboration with the founding team
• Run rapid experiments and decisively double down on what works while cutting what doesn't

Tech stack: Full-stack, AI — Python, JavaScript, Kotlin, Go (flexible on language)

Requirements

• 1–5 years of software engineering experience building AI-driven products
• Experience shipping products or features from ideation to real users with significant traction
• Proficiency in agentic development — designing and building orchestration pipelines across multiple agents, tools, and services
• Full-stack proficiency with a backend focus
• Active user of modern AI tooling (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, or similar)
• At least one clear signal of excellence — hackathon wins, side projects with significant traction, impressive fellowships, YC founder background, etc.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field
• Must be based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco

Preferred

• Previous founder or early-stage startup experience — YC or a16z alum backgrounds a strong plus
• Degree from a top-tier university (Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, or equivalent)

This Role Is NOT For

• Pretraining or fine-tuning ML researchers — this is applied agentic engineering, not model training
• Pure Big Tech careers with no side project, startup, or scrappy chapter
• Candidates with a pattern of short tenures across multiple companies

Interview Process

1. Application review
2. Intro screen (45 min) — technical depth, past projects, judgment, and founder fit
3. Pair coding session (60 min) — live coding, no AI tools; CS fundamentals and algorithmic reasoning
4. Onsite (~4 hours) — agentic coding session, system design, and behavioral/founder-fit conversation
5. Offer

Logistics

• Role is fully onsite in San Francisco (SoMa) — 5 days/week
• Relocation support available
• Visa sponsorship available

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by David Joseph & Co., the recruiting partner managing this search.