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Founding Engineer

early-stage AI startup Nomad, NY Direct Hire $160,000 - $260,000

Job Summary

Founding Engineer role with direct ownership over building an AI platform from the ground up. This position offers the opportunity to work closely with leadership on architecture decisions, customer interactions, and product direction as one of the first engineering hires.

Essential Functions

  • Build the core platform architecture with full ownership over technical decisions
  • Interface directly with customers to gather feedback and design solutions
  • Ship features end-to-end, with primary focus on backend development and some frontend work
  • Utilize AI-native development tools to write production code
  • Contribute to product roadmap definition and engineering culture as an early team member

Required Qualifications

  • 1-10 years of backend or full-stack engineering experience
  • Experience at high-caliber startups or companies
  • Built customer-facing products, not just internal tools or infrastructure
  • Prior founding or 0 to 1 experience building something from scratch
  • Actively uses AI coding tools and can articulate preferences between tools
  • Strong backend engineering skills with solid architecture and design judgment
  • Ability to communicate with non-technical customers and design solutions independently

Preferred Qualifications

  • CS degree or equivalent technical degree from a top university
  • Frontend ability and UI/UX sensibility for building usable features
  • Experience with non-technical user requirements

Technical Skills

  • Python
  • React
  • Next.js
  • AI/LLMs
  • LangChain
  • LangSmith
  • Vercel

Education & Certifications

CS degree or equivalent technical degree required. Top CS university education is a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $160,000 - $260,000 annually.

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