Founding Engineer

This is an opportunity to join a tiny engineering team at a critical product inflection point, where your work will directly influence architecture, product direction, performance, and the future of AI-powered creative software. What You’ll Do

• Build and harden a desktop-class video editor that runs entirely in the browser
• Develop high-performance client-side systems capable of handling professional video workloads
• Build AI agents that understand video editing, brand consistency, and motion graphics
• Train and deploy small machine learning models for video understanding and editing workflows
• Develop classifiers and vision-language models for AI-powered video features
• Optimize video playback, scrubbing, rendering, responsiveness, and overall application performance
• Push browser technologies to their limits for demanding creative workloads
• Build systems using WebAssembly, WebCodecs, SharedArrayBuffer, worker pools, and GPU/video processing technologies
• Develop full-stack product features using React, TypeScript, Python, and systems languages
• Design and implement performance-sensitive web applications
• Build scalable infrastructure supporting AI-powered video editing workflows
• Work across frontend, backend, systems, ML, and product engineering
• Collaborate directly with founders to define product and technical direction
• Talk directly with customers and users to understand workflows and improve the product
• Dog-food the product and continuously identify opportunities for improvement
• Ship features end-to-end with high velocity and ownership
• Solve complex technical challenges involving video processing, browser performance, and AI
• Contribute to architecture and engineering standards across the company
• Operate across multiple areas of the stack based on product priorities
• Help scale the product from professional creative workflows to a broader consumer audience
• Work with a small team where engineers are expected to take significant ownership
• Contribute to the upcoming consumer product launch and subsequent product growth, As a founding-level engineer, you’ll have significant influence over architecture, product direction, technical decisions, and the overall trajectory of the company.

• 0-5 years of professional experience in full-stack, product, or software engineering
• Strong experience building complex web applications
• Experience building products end-to-end with significant personal ownership
• Experience with React and TypeScript
• Strong Python engineering experience
• Experience with a systems programming language such as Rust or C
• Experience building performance-sensitive client-side applications
• Experience training and deploying machine learning models
• Experience working with AI/ML systems in production or advanced projects
• Experience at an early-stage startup or founding team strongly preferred
• Alternatively, candidates from Big Tech should demonstrate significant impact, ownership, or exceptional side projects
• Strong track record of building technically complex products
• Experience working across multiple layers of the technology stack
• Comfortable operating in highly ambiguous startup environments
• Strong builder mentality with demonstrated execution ability
• Experience owning projects from concept through deployment
• Strong interest in product development and hands-on engineering

Technical Requirements

• Strong React engineering experience
• Strong TypeScript engineering experience
• Strong Python engineering experience
• Proficiency in Rust, C, or another systems programming language
• Experience with high-performance web engineering
• Experience optimizing frontend performance and responsiveness
• Experience with browser-based application architecture
• Experience with WebAssembly preferred
• Experience with WebCodecs preferred
• Experience with SharedArrayBuffer or browser concurrency technologies preferred
• Experience with worker pools, Web Workers, or parallel processing preferred
• Experience with GPU or video processing preferred
• Experience training and deploying ML models
• Strong statistical or machine learning fundamentals
• Experience with classifiers, vision-language models, or similar ML systems preferred
• Experience building AI-powered applications
• Strong understanding of performance, memory, concurrency, and systems architecture
• Experience working with APIs and backend services
• Strong software architecture and systems thinking
• Strong debugging and performance troubleshooting capabilities, * Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field preferred
• CS or technical degree from a top engineering school strongly preferred
• Strong computer science, systems, machine learning, and software engineering fundamentals
• Equivalent exceptional practical engineering experience accepted

Soft Skills

• Exceptional technical ownership
• Strong builder mentality
• Deep curiosity around AI, creative tools, and emerging technology
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability
• Comfortable working with extreme ambiguity
• Strong communication skills
• Comfortable collaborating directly with founders and customers
• High execution velocity
• Strong attention to product quality and performance
• Bias toward experimentation and rapid iteration
• Strong ability to reason from first principles
• Comfortable working across frontend, backend, systems, and ML
• Low-ego collaborative mentality
• Customer-focused mindset
• Genuine interest in video editing or creative software
• Passion for building products rather than simply maintaining systems
• Comfortable working in a very small, high-performing startup team
• Willingness to work in-person 5 days per week in San Francisco
• Comfortable with a high-intensity startup environment
• Willingness to contribute across different areas based on company needs, If you enjoy building complex products from scratch, working across the entire stack, solving difficult performance and AI problems, and operating with exceptional ownership in a fast-moving startup, this role offers extraordinary technical and product impact., Analysis Skills, Application Programming Interface (API), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Programming Languages, C Programming Language, Category Development, Communication Skills, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Concurrency, Consumer Software, Creative Writing, Customer Relations, Debugging Skills, Desktop PC, Editing, Emerging Technology, Engineering, GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), Graphics, Identify Issues, Internet Application, Machine Learning, Memory Hardware, Modeling Languages, Parallel Computing, Performance Engineering, Performance Tuning/Optimization, Problem Solving Skills, Product Development, Product Engineering, Product/Service Launch, Production Systems, Programming Languages, Programming Tools, Python Programming/Scripting Language, React.js, Scalable System Development, Software Architecture, Software Development, Software Engineering, Startup, System Architecture, Systems Engineering, Systems Maintenance, Systems/Internals Programming, Team Building, Team Player, Technical Leadership, User Interface/Experience (UI/UX), Video Editing, Video Processing, Web Browsers, Web Programming

• Base Salary: $140,000 - $220,000
• Founding-level equity: 0.75% - 3%
• Opportunity to join a tiny founding engineering team
• Significant ownership over product and technical direction
• Opportunity to build an AI-native video editing platform from an early stage
• Direct collaboration with founders and technical leadership
• Opportunity to work across AI, ML, frontend, backend, systems, and performance engineering
• Exposure to WebAssembly, WebCodecs, GPU/video processing, and advanced browser technologies
• Opportunity to work directly with professional video editors and creative teams
• Opportunity to shape the consumer product launch
• Visa transfers and sponsorship available
• Relocation support to San Francisco
• High-impact early-stage startup environment

Why Join

This is an opportunity to join a tiny, highly technical team building a new category of AI-native creative software.

You’ll work at the intersection of AI, video editing, browser performance, machine learning, and systems engineering while helping push professional video editing beyond the capabilities of traditional desktop software.

Recruiting from Scratch is a premier talent firm that focuses on placing the best product managers, software, and hardware talent at innovative companies. Our team is 100% remote and we work with teams across the United States to help them hire.

Founding EngineerLocation - San Francisco, CA (On-site) - In-office 5 days per week in San Francisco.Compensation - $140,000 - $220,000 Base + 0.75% - 3% EquityVisa - Open to Visa Transfers and Visa SponsorshipCompany Stage - Early Stage - Seed / YC-BackedIndustry - Artificial Intelligence, Video Editing, Creative Software, Machine Learning, Developer Tools, Consumer SoftwareAbout the Company

Our client is building an AI-native collaborative video editing platform designed to bring professional-grade video creation into the browser.

The company is building a new generation of video editing software that combines high-performance browser-based editing with AI agents capable of understanding video, brand consistency, and motion graphics workflows.

The product is already deployed with major Hollywood studios and has gained traction with professional users, while the company is preparing for a broader consumer product launch.

The founding team comes from highly technical backgrounds across MIT, SpaceX, NASA, and frontier software development. The company operates as a small, highly technical team where engineers have significant ownership across product, infrastructure, AI, and performance.

As a Founding Engineer, you’ll help push browser-based video editing to its limits while building AI-powered editing capabilities and scaling the product toward a much broader user base.