Founding Engineer

Accountabilities:

• Transform an existing AI agent product into scalable, reliable infrastructure capable of supporting substantial user growth.
• Design, build, and operate the core agent runtime, including orchestration, memory, verification, and multi-agent workflows.
• Develop across the full technology stack, including backend services, infrastructure, frontend applications, and AI agent systems.
• Take technical initiatives from initial design through implementation, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Establish the foundational technical architecture, engineering standards, development practices, and tooling for the engineering organization.
• Work directly with the founder to define technical priorities and make high-impact product and architecture decisions.
• Ship product and infrastructure improvements frequently, using feedback from real customers to guide iteration.
• Build systems that are reliable, maintainable, observable, and capable of evolving as the product and customer base grow.
• Help establish the technical foundation and engineering culture that will support future team expansion.
• Take increasing ownership of technical strategy and organizational direction, with the potential to grow into CTO-level responsibility.

Requirements:

• At least 2 years of professional software engineering experience, or an equivalent track record of building and shipping real-world systems as a founder, solo builder, or early technical lead.
• Hands-on experience building and operating LLM-powered or AI agent systems in production, particularly systems used by real customers.
• Strong full-stack capabilities spanning backend engineering, infrastructure, frontend development, and AI/agent systems.
• Demonstrated ability to make independent technical decisions and choose pragmatic solutions in an early-stage environment.
• Experience taking a functional prototype toward production scale through architectural improvements, data modeling, runtime design, orchestration, and reliability work.
• Strong track record of shipping frequently, iterating based on user feedback, and delivering meaningful improvements under tight timelines.
• Ability to clearly explain the technical challenges, architectural decisions, and tradeoffs involved in systems you have built.
• Comfortable operating with significant ambiguity, limited process, and broad responsibility.
• Founder or early-stage startup experience is highly valuable, particularly experience building products from an early stage.
• Familiarity with recruiting, agencies, professional services, or other service-delivery businesses is a plus.
• Demonstrated commitment and stability in previous roles is preferred.
• Based in Europe initially, with willingness to relocate to San Francisco within the first year.

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation: Annual salary of €80,000–€140,000, depending on experience and fit.
• US visa sponsorship: Support is available for relocation to the United States.
• Relocation support: Assistance is provided for the move to San Francisco within the first year.
• Remote flexibility: Work remotely from within Europe during the initial period.
• Founding-level ownership: Join as the first engineering hire and have significant influence over the product, architecture, and engineering organization.
• CTO growth opportunity: Potential to develop into a CTO-level leadership position as the company and engineering team expand.
• Direct founder collaboration: Work closely with the founder on product direction, technical strategy, and company-building decisions.
• Broad technical scope: Build across AI agents, backend systems, infrastructure, frontend applications, and production operations.
• High-impact environment: Ship directly to real customers and see the impact of your technical decisions quickly.
• Early-stage autonomy: Help establish engineering practices, standards, architecture, and culture from the ground up.