Job Description
Company Overview
Join a high-intensity, YC-backed startup that recently graduated from Y Combinator. The company raised $2.5M in Seed Funding in December and is ranked among the top 10 companies in its batch in terms of revenue.
- 7 months into product development
- San Francisco-based HQ
- Small, focused team
- Actively working with enterprise clients
- Rapidly scaling team and product delivery
The team is mission-driven, ambitious, and execution-focused.
Role Summary
We are looking for a Founding AI Engineer to join the core technical team. The engineer will play a pivotal role in building production-grade AI systems. This is a unique opportunity to join an early-stage, rapidly scaling startup post-YC.
Key Responsibilities
- Architect, build, and scale intelligent LLM pipelines and agent-based AI systems
- Own end-to-end ML workflows from experimentation to deployment
- Collaborate closely with founders and CTO to shape AI/LLM architecture and product roadmap
Top Priorities in a Candidate
- Raw Intelligence: Exceptionally smart, proven high achievement (e.g., top-tier school, Olympiad/ICPC, published papers, high-impact projects, former founder, or founding engineer experience).
- Hands-on with LLMs: Experience in building agentic AI pipelines or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) stacks. The role emphasizes building usable production systems.
- Startup DNA: High ownership, grit, and willingness to work in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment (80+ hours/week).
- Culture Fit: Comfortable operating in an intense, no-nonsense environment.
Tech Stack
- Must-have: Python
- Strongly preferred: Experience with LLMs, agentic AI, evaluation frameworks (e.g., OpenAI evals, custom evaluation frameworks)
- Nice-to-have: Basic infrastructure knowledge (a bonus)
Interview Process
- Initial Call: 30-45 minutes with the Founder
- Technical Interview: 45 minutes with the CTO
- Final Stage: In-person in San Francisco (travel covered) or a virtual 1-day work exercise
Summary
This is an exciting opportunity for an AI engineer eager to take on a hands-on, impactful role in a rapidly growing company. If you are ready for a challenge and want to make an impact from the ground up, we want to hear from you!
Job Highlights
- Qualifications:
- Raw Intelligence: top-tier achievement
- Hands-on experience with LLMs
- Building usable production systems
- Startup mentality
- Culture fit
- Responsibilities:
- Build and scale AI systems
- End-to-end ML workflows
- Collaborate on product roadmap
- Initial call with founder