Founding Engineer

Solva Technology; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

A growing AI-focused startup in New York is seeking a founding engineer to help architect and build their core product. This role demands strong backend and infrastructure experience, particularly with cloud technologies and scalable systems. You will engage closely with customers, making architectural decisions that shape the future of innovative processes. This position provides a unique opportunity for true ownership and influence in a fast-paced team environment, perfect for those eager to develop their leadership skills while innovating in the AI space.

Qualifications

• Experience in building impressive projects in the AI space.
• Strong backend and infrastructure experience with cloud technology.
• Proven ability to balance short-term pragmatism with long-term design.
• Excited to work directly with customers in complex industries.
• Leadership mindset; eager to mentor and grow into a technical leader.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build production systems for core products.
• Lead on infrastructure and backend development.
• Work across tech stack as needed and iterate with customers.
• Ship fast, iterate with customers and turn messy problems into scalable systems.
• Help build a great engineering culture and shape the long-term technical vision.

Skills

Backend systems

Infrastructure experience (cloud, infra-as-code)

Software development (Go, Python, React)

Leadership mindset

Architectural decision making

Tools

Postgres

GCP/AWS

Kubernetes

Terraform

CI/CD

Kubernetes

Terraform

CI/CD

React

TypeScript

Job description

About Solva

Solva is building AI for insurers to transform an $8 trillion industry, starting with claims. We’re backed by $6m from First Round, Y Combinator, SV Angel and angel investors, including Paul Graham, that have funded companies such as OpenAI, Google, Stripe, Anthropic, Databricks and Github. We have an advisory board of experienced insurance executives and founders.

Our team was previously part of building Europe’s fastest growing InsurTech and founded a licensed EU bank processing payments of €1B/yr+. Now we are taking on one of the world’s largest industries and rebuilding it from the ground up with AI.

Solva is a Y Combinator S25 company and has emerged as one of the fastest growing and best-funded startups.

About the role

As founding engineer you will work alongside a team of experienced 2x-founders and ex-Apple engineers. Set the bar for AI security and accountability - there are no (good) best practices so we're creating them ourselves. If it makes sense; we do the hard stuff most only say they do. Read a paper or 10 if you must. We’re looking for someone who truly wants to innovate.

You’ll have a defining role in building the core product and further expanding the engineering team.

One week you’ll be deep in backend systems and cloud infrastructure, the next you’ll be making the architectural decisions that define how claims decisions worth multiple billions are made.

This is a true ownership role. You won’t just ship code, you’ll help set the technical direction, lead initiatives on new projects, and take part in building the engineering team and culture from the ground up.

What you’ll do

• Architect and build production systems for our core products

• Lead on infrastructure and backend (Go, Python, Postgres, GCP/AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD)

• Work across the stack where needed (React, Vite, TypeScript)

• Ship fast, iterate with customers and turn messy problems into clean, scalable systems

• Help build a great engineering culture and play a key role in shaping the long term technical vision
  

What we’re looking for

• Gold star if you’ve built something impressive in the AI space

• Strong backend and infrastructure experience (cloud, infra-as-code, scaling systems, observability)

• Ability to own technical decisions and balance pragmatism with long-term design

• Excited to build directly with customers in complex, real-world industries

• Joy in moving fast, breaking down ambiguity on a whiteboard and making solid engineering judgement calls

• Leadership mindset: eager to shape culture, mentor future hires, and grow into a key technical leader