Founding Engineer

Q/RATA
Palo Alto, CA, United States
about 2 months ago

Role details

Contract type
Permanent contract
Employment type
Full-time (> 32 hours)
Experience level
Expert
Experience required
10 years minimum
Compensation
$200,000.0 - $300,000.0
Working hours
Regular working hours
Job source

Tech stack

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing Software Debugging Distributed Systems AI Infrastructure Multi-Agent Systems Backend Production Code Machine Learning Operations Front End Software Development Software Coding

Job description

We are looking for a Founding Engineer, who will help define and build the core product from the ground up. This is a true zero-to-one role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, moves quickly, and cares deeply about engineering craft, product quality, and long-term technical leverage.

You’ll work closely with the founders, product, and design to architect, build, and ship the platform. You’ll stay hands-on across the stack, make foundational technical decisions, and help shape both the product and engineering culture from day one.

What you’ll do

  • Build and scale core product and platform systems from prototype to production.
  • Own major pieces of architecture, implementation, and execution.
  • Write production code every week and ship alongside the team.
  • Design APIs, debug live issues, build infrastructure, and improve developer velocity.
  • Make smart technical tradeoffs across frontend, backend, data, cloud, and AI infrastructure.
  • Partner directly with founders and cross-functional teammates to turn ambiguity into concrete execution.
  • Help establish lightweight engineering processes, reliability standards, and technical best practices.
  • Contribute to the hiring and growth of the engineering team as the company scales.

Requirements

Do you have experience in Startup experience?, * 10+ years of engineering experience, with strong startup or product company experience. (prior startup and consumer tech business experience is a MUST)

  • Must be a deeply hands-on engineer, writing code daily and constantly looking for ways to improve the codebase
  • Proven track record of building systems from zero to one.
  • Strong full-stack expertise across frontend, backend, cloud, data, and ideally AI/ML systems.
  • Strong product judgment and comfort making fast, pragmatic decisions.
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
  • Experience operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

Nice to have

  • Prior founding engineer or early engineer experience.
  • Experience shipping AI-powered consumer products, personalization, or agentic systems.
  • Experience with modern AI infrastructure such as RAG, vector databases, or evaluation tooling.
  • Background in distributed systems, real-time infrastructure, or low-latency services.

Benefits & conditions

Pulled from the full job description

  • 401(k)
  • Health insurance
  • Dental insurance, * 401(k)
  • Dental insurance
  • Health insurance

About the company

We are hiring for our client- a well-funded AI startup creating innovative products at the intersection of web applications and modern AI. Their goal is to build seamless, delightful personalization experiences that enhance everyday life through trusted services.

About the company

  • Backed by top Silicon Valley venture capital and leading angels from Anthropic, Google DeepMind, NVIDIA/ARM, and Oracle AI.
  • Led by proven Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who have scaled startups to IPOs and Fortune 500 exits.

Apply for this position

This job is hosted externally. Click below to view the full posting and apply.

Apply on indeed.com

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