Founding AI Engineer — Build Core Product, NYC In-Office

Digital Waffle; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Waffle in New York is seeking a Founding Engineer to join the earliest engineering hires and shape the architecture, culture, and standards of what comes next. You will ship production code from day one and own critical decisions alongside the founders in a fast-moving startup.

This role is hands-on and high-impact: you’ll build features across Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js, set the tech direction, and help scale the team as you codify reliability and performance from the start.

Qualifications

• Strong commercial engineering experience, ideally as an early hire at a fast-growing startup.
• Experience shipping product end to end with production-grade code.
• Comfortable making architectural calls with incomplete information.
• In-person work five days a week in New York.

Responsibilities

• Build core product features end to end across Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js.
• Make foundational architecture, tooling and infrastructure decisions that will carry the product for years.
• Ship fast, iterate on real user feedback and hold a high bar for what goes to production.
• Work directly with the founders on product direction, prioritisation and technical trade-offs.
• Own reliability, performance and cost from the start, not as later problems.
• Shape hiring, engineering culture and standards as the team grows behind you.
• Use AI tooling across every part of your workflow.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

React

Next.js

Startup experience

Architectural decisions

Job description

Digital Waffle in New York is seeking a Founding Engineer to join the earliest engineering hires and shape the architecture, culture, and standards of what comes next. You will ship production code from day one and own critical decisions alongside the founders in a fast-moving startup.

This role is hands-on and high-impact: you’ll build features across Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js, set the tech direction, and help scale the team as you codify reliability and performance from the start.