Founding Engineer

Idea Fund of La Crosse; La Crosse (WI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Idea Fund of La Crosse is seeking a founding engineer to co-create a new company. This is a builder’s seat—the engineer writes the first code, ships the first product, and turns a validated concept into a real business.

The role begins during concept validation, with funding for prototyping and early builds, and converts to full-time as the venture forms and funds. The ideal candidate will own the full tech stack in an early-stage setting, shape the product, engage early customers, and earn a

Qualifications

• Strong builders at any career stage; ground-floor role.
• Full-stack capability across front end, back end, and infrastructure.
• Demonstrated ability to ship real software, production product, or open-source.
• Pragmatic technical decision-making: know when to build for scale and when to ship.
• Excellent communication with non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Scope, build and ship a market-ready MVP for early customers.
• Decide on cloud infrastructure, data models, APIs, deployment pipelines.
• Support customer discovery and early pilots with real-world feedback.
• Establish development standards, CI/CD, and tooling from scratch with AI aids.
• Set code quality and engineering culture for future hires.

Skills

Full-stack development

Ship production software

Frontend development

Backend development

Infra deployment

Tools

CI/CD pipelines

Cloud platforms

Job description

Idea Fund of La Crosse is a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in high-potential startups in Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest, with $43mm under management across two funds. Beyond backing companies founded by others, Idea Fund co-founds businesses directly: it develops the concept, sponsors formation, provides the first capital, and recruits the founding team.

We are recruiting an engineer who wants to co-found a new company. This is a builder’s seat: the founding engineer writes the first code, ships the first product, and turns a validated concept into a real business. Rather than hiring into a single predetermined concept, this search is for a founding engineer we will pair with one of the ventures currently in development at Idea Fund.

The Concepts

Idea Fund maintains a pipeline of ventures in active development, each led or co-led by an experienced operator. The founding engineer will be matched to the concept where timing, fit, and interest line up best. Current concepts include:

Vertical workflow automation.

Software that automates intake, onboarding, and back-office workflows for professional practices, beginning in a fast-growing segment of healthcare. The concept is led by an operator CEO who built and ran a multimillion-dollar software development firm.

A platform that delivers banking and financial-wellness benefits to working people through their employers, in partnership with community financial institutions.

Additional concepts.

The pipeline is ongoing, and new concepts reach this stage regularly. The strongest match may be one that is not yet public.

How the Role Works

During concept validation — before the company is formed — Idea Fund pays for the engineering work directly: prototyping, technical discovery, MVP scoping, and early builds. This phase is structured to fit alongside a current job or the final stretch of a degree and give both Idea Fund and the candidate an opportunity to work together.

Convert to full time.

When the concept clears its validation gate and the company is formed and funded, the engineer joins full time as a founding team member, with a meaningful equity stake and cash compensation appropriate for a venture-backed early-stage company.

We are looking for someone who treats the validation phase as the start of their company: shaping the product, meeting early customers, and earning the founding role.

Responsibilities

• Scope, build and ship a market-ready MVP that can be deployed, demonstrated, and sold to early customers.
• Make foundational decisions on cloud infrastructure, data models, APIs, deployment pipelines, and security.
• Support customer discovery and early pilots — configuring, debugging, and iterating on real-world feedback.
• Establish development standards, documentation practices, CI/CD pipelines, and tooling from scratch, using AI coding tools deliberately and validating every output before it ships.
• Set the bar for code quality and engineering culture that future hires build on.

Qualifications

• We evaluate candidates on what they've built and how they think, not years of experience. This is a ground-floor role for strong builders at any career stage.
• Full-stack capability across front end, back end, and infrastructure, with the ability to own the entire technical stack in an early-stage environment.
• Demonstrated ability to ship real software: a production product, a compelling side project, or an open-source contribution.
• Pragmatic technical decision-making: knows when to build for scale and when to ship something that works.
• Strong communication skills and comfort working directly with non-technical stakeholders and customers.
• Self-direction and the ability to thrive with autonomy and limited structure.
• A genuine appetite for the founder path: ownership, risk, and the work of building a company, not just its product.