Founding Engineer

Differential.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meaningful early-stage equity

Visa sponsorship available

Small, founder-led team

Job summary

Differential. is looking for a Founding Engineer in New York City to join a small engineering team focused on building AI-driven automation technology for complex operational workflows.

The role involves owning projects from inception, designing systems, and developing integrations. Ideal candidates have 4-8 years of full stack experience, particularly with backend Node, and should thrive in early-stage environments.

This position offers significant equity and the opportunity to work on impactful, real-world problems.

Qualifications

• 4–8 years’ full stack software engineering experience.
• Experience owning products or systems from 0→1.
• Ability to work in early-stage environments with minimal supervision.

Responsibilities

• Own high-impact projects end-to-end.
• Build core product infrastructure and integrations.
• Develop AI-powered workflow automation.
• Design systems for scheduling and compliance.

Skills

Full stack software engineering

Backend experience with Node

Strong database experience (PostgreSQL)

Startup or founding engineer experience

Job description

Founding Engineer - Early-Stage AI Workflow Startup

New York City | Onsite | $170k–$220k + meaningful equity

I’m working with an early-stage AI company in New York that is building automation technology for a large, underserved operational market.

The business is solving a real-world coordination problem where teams still rely heavily on phone calls, fragmented systems, manual admin and outdated workflows. Their product uses AI agents to automate complex scheduling, communication and verification workflows across multiple systems of record.

This is a Founding Engineer role, joining a very small engineering team at a point where there is still significant scope to shape the product, architecture and engineering culture.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll own ambiguous, high-impact projects end-to-end, including:

• Building core product infrastructure and integrations with third-party systems
• Developing AI-powered workflow automation across communication-heavy operational processes
• Designing systems that handle context, memory, scheduling logic and compliance-sensitive actions
• Working across full-stack product development, backend systems and LLM-powered workflow

The ideal person is a backend-leaning full-stack engineer who enjoys early-stage ownership and can operate without much hand-holding.

You’ll likely have:

• 4–8 years’ full stack software engineering experience
• Backend experience with Node
• Strong database experience, ideally PostgreSQL or similar relational systems
• Experience owning products or systems from 0→1

Prior startup or founding engineer experience would be very relevant, especially if you’ve built products for complex professional or operational users.

Why this could be interesting

This is not a generic AI wrapper or a narrow feature role. The team is building software that sits inside messy, real-world operational workflows where reliability, context and judgment matter.

It’s a strong fit for someone who wants:

• Early engineering ownership
• A product with real customer pull
• A technical problem that spans product, infrastructure, integrations and AI
• Meaningful equity upside
• Direct exposure to customers and product direction

Package

• Equity: meaningful early-stage equity
• Small, founder-led team
• Visa sponsorship available for relevant candidates

Location

This is an onsite role in New York City. The team is building in person and looking for someone excited by the pace and ownership of an early‑stage environment.

If you’re a product-minded full-stack engineer who enjoys building from zero, solving messy operational problems and working with AI-enabled workflows, this could be a very strong fit.