Founding Applied AI Engineer

Recruiting from Scratch; California (MO); Remote; USD 160,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company is seeking an AI Engineer to join a stealth-mode startup focused on transforming customer operations using generative AI. As a key early hire, you will collaborate with the founding team to design and scale AI infrastructure, shaping the product and company culture. This role offers a competitive salary and equity in a venture-backed environment, ideal for engineers passionate about applied AI.

Benefits

Competitive early-stage equity package

Remote-first work environment

Medical insurance

Vision insurance

401(k)

Qualifications

• 5–7 years of experience in production ML engineering roles.
• Deep understanding of LLM architectures and AI deployment pipelines.
• Experience with AI tooling like LangGraph or Langfuse is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement AI agent orchestration systems.
• Design RAG pipelines for integrating internal knowledge bases.
• Develop contextual memory systems and knowledge graphs.

Skills

Python

ML Engineering

LLM Architectures

AI Deployment Pipelines

RAG Systems

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

FastAPI

SQLModel

PostgreSQL

Redis

Job description

Recruiting from Scratch provided pay range

This range is provided by Recruiting from Scratch. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Base pay range

$160,000.00/yr - $220,000.00/yr

Direct message the job poster from Recruiting from Scratch

Recruiting from Scratch is a talent firm that focuses on placing the best candidate for our clients.

Title of Role: AI Engineer

Location: Remote (California preferred, NY considered)

Company Stage of Funding: Seed (Backed by top VCs including Acrew and Emerson Collective)

Office Type: Remote

Company Description

We are partnering with a stealth-mode, venture-backed startup founded by repeat technical entrepreneurs with a vision to transform customer operations using generative AI. The company has recently closed a $4M seed round led by top-tier venture firms and is building a category-defining platform for AI agents in enterprise environments.

The founders bring extensive leadership experience from leading tech companies and successful startups. They have previously scaled teams and shipped high-impact AI/ML products at companies like BetterUp and Thoughtful AI. This is an exceptional opportunity to join at the ground floor and help build both product and company alongside deeply experienced and thoughtful operators.

What You Will Do

As one of the first engineering hires, you will work closely with the founding team to design, build, and scale the AI agent infrastructure from scratch. Your contributions will directly shape the product and culture of the company.

• Architect and implement AI agent orchestration systems tailored to enterprise workflows
• Design RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines for integrating and querying internal knowledge bases
• Develop contextual memory systems and knowledge graphs for continuous learning
• Implement AI observability and performance monitoring frameworks
• Create predictive models for customer health, churn, and upsell opportunities
• Build natural language understanding features like sentiment and intent detection
• Design closed-loop feedback systems to improve AI performance based on usage data

Ideal Candidate Background

We’re looking for engineers with a passion for applied AI who have a balanced mix of startup agility and corporate-scale experience.

• 5–7 years of experience in production ML engineering roles
• Proven success at both startups and larger tech organizations
• Track record of promotions or demonstrated career growth
• Deep understanding of LLM architectures, RAG systems, and AI deployment pipelines
• Strong Python experience; familiarity with FastAPI, SQLModel, Celery, PostgreSQL (with pgvector), and Redis
• Frontend familiarity with React and Vite is a bonus
• Experience working with AI tooling like LangGraph, Langfuse, or Agno is a plus

Preferred

• 2+ years of experience in a startup or founder environment
• 2+ years in a corporate/enterprise software engineering setting
• 2+ years working specifically in applied AI, including LLM-based systems or NLP projects
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent industry experience
• Candidates currently based in California are strongly preferred; those in New York will also be considered

Compensation and Benefits

• Equity: Competitive early-stage equity package
• Work Environment: Remote-first with preference for California-based candidates
• Visa: Visa sponsorship is not available at this time
• Position Type: Full-time
• Team Structure: Direct collaboration with the founding team, including the Head of Engineering

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Product Management

• Industries

  Software Development

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Inferred from the description for this job

Medical insurance

Vision insurance

401(k)

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