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# Founding Engineer

- **Company:** David Joseph & Company
- **Location:** New York, NY, United States
- **Salary:** $175,000.0 - $250,000.0
- **Contract:** Internship / Graduate position
- **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Databases, Github, Python (Programming Language), Software Engineering, TypeScript, Large Language Models, Backend, Front End Software Development, Virtual Agents
- **Published:** June 29, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b6d0b9be755132aa

## About the Role

Do you have experience in Tooling?, * 0-5 years engineering, hard cap at 5

 * Excellence signal: notable startup, big tech, or top university CS
 * Python backend fundamentals
 * AI-native: Claude Code, Codex daily
 * Self-motivated tech lead, ramps fast
 * NYC in-person

Green Flags

 * Notable startup or big tech background showing the candidate cleared a real bar to get in (high-clout internships count). Confirms execution under pressure.
 * Top university CS or technical degree paired with active engineering signal (GitHub, side projects, hackathon wins).
 * Quant or HFT engineering background. Matches the existing team profile (both current devs are ex-HFT).
 * AI-native daily usage of Claude Code, Codex, or comparable. Has strong opinions on agent tool design.
 * Socialized, high-energy engineer who is excited about the product, not just a backend dev who wants to talk only to a database., * Indie-dev-only background without notable startup, big tech, or top university signal. Hard to differentiate from low-clout AI-note-taker-tier work.
 * More than 5 years of experience.
 * Zero-to-one experience but no users, no story to tell, no demonstrable shipping signal.
 * Resume polish without excellence markers: mid-university + unrelated experience + no notable inflection point.
 * Wants spoon-feeding or detailed scope handoff. Cannot operate as tech lead from day one.

## Description

A Founding Engineer working primarily on the new AI CFO agent, with tech-lead-level autonomy from day one. You'll join a small, technical team with no dedicated product person, giving you outsized influence over what gets built. Time split is roughly 75% new AI agent work / 25% existing lending infrastructure. Primarily backend Python with exposure to TypeScript frontend. No customer-facing work or formal product ownership.

What you'll be doing

 * Build and extend the AI CFO agent's tool surface so it can complete tasks that currently take a CFO or CEO an hour or more
 * Improve agent trajectory quality, and the breadth and depth of tools, so the agent reliably ships end-to-end outcomes
 * Compose existing scoped tools and build new ones (email composition, document filling, payload generation, account integrations)
 * Contribute to the underlying infrastructure both the lending and AI agent businesses sit on top of
 * Operate as a tech lead from day one: ramp fast, own delivery, work in a Slack-native, AI-tool-heavy development cycle

Tech stack: Python (backend - APIs, async, databases, cloud deployment); TypeScript (frontend); LLM tool-calling / agentic systems


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