Founding Engineer

Title : Founding Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA

Hire type : FTE

The Role

You'll be a "GME" (General Manager of Engineering): architect, builder, and customer-facing problem solver all in one. No hand-holding. Full ownership.

Core technical domains:

• Entity resolution / MDP matching across messy supply chain data
• Product substitution via RAG
• Pricing discovery & automated procurement workflows
• Durable-execution agent platform (distributed systems at scale)
• Agentic search infrastructure

Comprehensive Person Spec

Must-Haves (Dealbreakers if missing)

Attribute : Detail

Technical excellence : Strong CS fundamentals, track record of shipping high-impact work

Systems experience : Distributed systems, durable execution, complex system design, or large-scale data manipulation

Language proficiency : Node.js, Python, or TypeScript (flexible, but these are preferred)

Customer-facing ability : Comfortable getting on the phone with buyers/suppliers; common-sense communicator

Commercial/product sense : Can translate messy real-world problems into shipped solutions

Autonomy & hunger : Shows up early, grinds without direction, ships relentlessly

Something remarkable : A standout achievement (school or work) that signals top-tier calibre

Other required traits

• Prior Founding Engineer, Founding AI Engineer, MTS, or Forward Deployed Engineer experience
• Background at top-tier engineering brands: OpenAI, Databricks, OpenEvidence, or similar
• AI/LLM infrastructure experience (RAG, agentic systems, entity matching)

Red Flags to Screen Out

• Multiple short stints (job-hopping pattern)
• Startup experience that is part-time or remote consulting (HM has flagged this as a weak negative signal looks good on paper but doesn't pass the bar)
• Narrow scope of work / no evidence of end-to-end ownership
• Needs heavy management or direction
• Unremarkable career arc with no standout achievement