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# Founding Engineer - Generalist

- **Company:** David Joseph & Company
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States
- **Experience:** Experienced
- **Salary:** $150,000.0 - $350,000.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Geospatial Intelligence, Software Deployment, Spatial Data Infrastructures, Data Ingestion, Backend, Production Code, Front End Software Development, Data Pipelines, Databricks
- **Published:** October 22, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=31b51024ec7ba0ba

## About the Role

Must-Have

 * 3+ years of engineering experience at real companies, with a track record of building and shipping production systems at high velocity
 * Full-stack generalist ability: comfortable owning both backend systems and frontend surfaces, and moving between layers as the scope demands
 * High agency and outcome orientation: operates without a defined scope or playbook, identifies what needs to be built, and executes end-to-end
 * Fluency with the current AI and software stack: native to modern tooling and not dependent on legacy patterns
 * Willingness to work in-person at the San Francisco office at startup intensity, with demanding hours consistent with an early-stage founding team

Nice-to-Have

 * GIS or geospatial engineering background: experience with spatial data formats, GIS tooling, or location-based systems
 * Applied AI research background: a paper, project, or production system that goes beyond standard ML pipeline work
 * Experience at a high-velocity startup (such as Mercor, Databricks, Cognition, or similar) where you built real systems under pressure
 * Competitive programming signal: IOI, ICPC, or equivalent
 * Prior founding or early-employee experience at a startup where you operated without structure

## Description

The company is hiring its first Founding Engineers to build the core of a deeply horizontal system spanning data ingestion, spatial computation, agent orchestration, and product surfaces. The system is big and there is a lot to build: each engineer is expected to own outcomes end-to-end, operate with high agency, and function like a mini-founder within the org. This is an in-person role in San Francisco, working directly alongside the founder., * Own modules of the geospatial intelligence platform end-to-end, from architecture decisions through production deployment, without waiting for a playbook

 * Build and iterate on core system components: data ingestion pipelines, spatial computation layers, agent orchestration logic, and output delivery surfaces
 * Ship production code at high velocity, balancing technical depth with product intuition and customer outcomes
 * Identify and close gaps in the system independently, proposing and executing on what needs to be built next
 * Collaborate directly with the founder to shape early technical and product direction as the team scales from its first hires