Founding Engineer

Who is Recruiting from Scratch: 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.Title of Role: Founding EngineerLocation: San Francisco, CA (Presidio - On-site, 5 days/week)Company Stage of Funding: Seed (~$10M raised)Office Type: On-siteSalary: $180,000 - $280,000 + Competitive EquityVisa: No visa sponsorship availableCompany DescriptionOur client is an early-stage enterprise AI startup building intelligent automation systems for the insurance industry.The company is transforming one of the largest and most operationally inefficient sectors globally by replacing manual, error-prone insurance workflows with AI-native systems.Backed by Y Combinator with one of the largest recent insurtech seed rounds, the company has already secured a pilot with a top-10 U.S. insurance carrier that could convert into a significant seven-figure enterprise contract.The founding team brings deep technical and domain expertise, including prior startup exits and experience scaling high-growth engineering organizations.With only a few engineers on the team today, this is a rare opportunity to join as an early foundational technical hire and shape both product and engineering culture from day one.What You Will DoBuild AI agents and core product features from scratchOwn full product modules end-to-end from discovery to productionWork directly with enterprise customers to deeply understand workflowsDesign and iterate on evaluation systems for AI agent performanceBuild systems that ingest and reason over unstructured enterprise dataDevelop backend systems for scalable AI workflowsPrototype rapidly and ship production-grade solutionsTravel occasionally to customer sites for implementation and discoveryPartner directly with founders on product and technical directionHelp define engineering culture, architecture, and long-term technical strategyIdeal Candidate Background2-10 years of full-stack or backend engineering experienceStrong startup experience or evidence of exceptional ownershipExperience shipping production systems end-to-endStrong product-minded engineering instinctsComfortable working in ambiguous, customer-driven environmentsExcited by AI-native engineering workflowsPreferredBuilt production LLM or AI agent systemsExperience in regulated or data-intensive industries (insurance, fintech, healthcare, legaltech)Strong TypeScript or backend systems experienceExperience designing eval systems for AI outputsExperience with agentic engineering workflowsStrong customer-facing technical communicationExceptional evidence of intensity / excellence (startup founding, competitive athletics, OSS, etc.)Compensation and BenefitsBase salary: $180,000 - $280,000Equity: Competitive early-stage equityNo visa sponsorshipRelocation support available within the U.S.Direct founder collaborationMeaningful ownership from day oneClear path to future technical leadershipWhy JoinThis is a rare opportunity to join an AI-native startup attacking a massive legacy enterprise market at the exact moment the technology is ready for disruption.You’ll work directly with enterprise customers, build production AI systems from scratch, and help define the technical foundation of a company positioned for rapid growth.If you’re excited by hard technical problems, direct product ownership, and operating as a true full-stack problem solver, this role offers exceptional upside and impact. Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

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. Title of Role: Founding EngineerLocation: San Francisco, CA (Presidio - On-site, 5 days/week)Company Stage of Funding: Seed (~$10M raised)Office Type: On-siteSalary: $180,000 - $280,000 + Competitive EquityVisa: No visa sponsorship availableCompany DescriptionOur client is an early-stage enterprise AI startup building intelligent automation systems for the insurance industry.The company is transforming one of the largest and most operationally inefficient sectors globally by replacing manual, error-prone insurance workflows with AI-native systems.Backed by Y Combinator with one of the largest recent insurtech seed rounds, the company has already secured a pilot with a top-10 U.S. insurance carrier that could convert into a significant seven-figure enterprise contract.The founding team brings deep technical and domain expertise, including prior startup exits and experience scaling high-growth engineering organizations.With only a few engineers on the team today, this is a rare opportunity to join as an early foundational technical hire and shape both product and engineering culture from day one.What You Will DoBuild AI agents and core product features from scratchOwn full product modules end-to-end from discovery to productionWork directly with enterprise customers to deeply understand workflowsDesign and iterate on evaluation systems for AI agent performanceBuild systems that ingest and reason over unstructured enterprise dataDevelop backend systems for scalable AI workflowsPrototype rapidly and ship production-grade solutionsTravel occasionally to customer sites for implementation and discoveryPartner directly with founders on product and technical directionHelp define engineering culture, architecture, and long-term technical strategyIdeal Candidate Background2-10 years of full-stack or backend engineering experienceStrong startup experience or evidence of exceptional ownershipExperience shipping production systems end-to-endStrong product-minded engineering instinctsComfortable working in ambiguous, customer-driven environmentsExcited by AI-native engineering workflowsPreferredBuilt production LLM or AI agent systemsExperience in regulated or data-intensive industries (insurance, fintech, healthcare, legaltech)Strong TypeScript or backend systems experienceExperience designing eval systems for AI outputsExperience with agentic engineering workflowsStrong customer-facing technical communicationExceptional evidence of intensity / excellence (startup founding, competitive athletics, OSS, etc.)Compensation and BenefitsBase salary: $180,000 - $280,000Equity: Competitive early-stage equityNo visa sponsorshipRelocation support available within the U.S.Direct founder collaborationMeaningful ownership from day oneClear path to future technical leadershipWhy JoinThis is a rare opportunity to join an AI-native startup attacking a massive legacy enterprise market at the exact moment the technology is ready for disruption.You’ll work directly with enterprise customers, build production AI systems from scratch, and help define the technical foundation of a company positioned for rapid growth.If you’re excited by hard technical problems, direct product ownership, and operating as a true full-stack problem solver, this role offers exceptional upside and impact.

2-10 years of full-stack or backend engineering experience Strong startup experience or evidence of exceptional ownership Experience shipping production systems end-to-end Strong product-minded engineering instincts Comfortable working in ambiguous, customer-driven environments Excited by AI-native engineering workflows

Preferred

Built production LLM or AI agent systems Experience in regulated or data-intensive industries (insurance, fintech, healthcare, legaltech) Strong TypeScript or backend systems experience Experience designing eval systems for AI outputs Experience with agentic engineering workflows Strong customer-facing technical communication Exceptional evidence of intensity / excellence (startup founding, competitive athletics, OSS, etc.)

Base salary: $180,000 - $280,000 Equity: Competitive early-stage equity No visa sponsorship Relocation support available within the U.S. Direct founder collaboration Meaningful ownership from day one Clear path to future technical leadership

Why Join

This is a rare opportunity to join an AI-native startup attacking a massive legacy enterprise market at the exact moment the technology is ready for disruption.

You’ll work directly with enterprise customers, build production AI systems from scratch, and help define the technical foundation of a company positioned for rapid growth.

If you’re excited by hard technical problems, direct product ownership, and operating as a true full-stack problem solver, this role offers exceptional upside and impact.

Our client is an early-stage enterprise AI startup building intelligent automation systems for the insurance industry.

The company is transforming one of the largest and most operationally inefficient sectors globally by replacing manual, error-prone insurance workflows with AI-native systems.

Backed by Y Combinator with one of the largest recent insurtech seed rounds, the company has already secured a pilot with a top-10 U.S. insurance carrier that could convert into a significant seven-figure enterprise contract.

The founding team brings deep technical and domain expertise, including prior startup exits and experience scaling high-growth engineering organizations.

With only a few engineers on the team today, this is a rare opportunity to join as an early foundational technical hire and shape both product and engineering culture from day one.