Founding Engineer

Kinetic; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Kinetic is seeking a founding engineer for PayMe, a fast-growing fintech product based in New York. In this role, you will transform ambiguous goals into concrete plans, collaborate closely with product, growth, and design teams, and leverage AI heavily in your work.

This is an exciting opportunity to shape the engineering landscape early on and contribute to meaningful product decisions.

Qualifications

• Experience in building consumer products, preferably in fintech.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, high-agency environment.
• Strong taste in product quality and styles.

Responsibilities

• Transform vague goals into actionable product plans.
• Collaborate with product, growth, and design teams.
• Lead meaningful engineering decisions and software delivery.

Skills

Product judgment

Fast-paced experience

Strong individual contributor

AI utilization

Job description

What is PayMe

PayMe helps everyday people find and claim money they are already owed, from class action settlements, mass arbitrations, unclaimed funds, and more.

It is a fast-growing consumer fintech product where product quality, speed, trust, and execution all matter at once.

What we need

PayMe needs a founding engineer who can take vague goals, figure out what matters, and implement basically anything needed to move the business forward.

This is a true full-stack builder role. We want someone with strong product judgment who can turn ambiguity into shipped product.

Who you are

• Agentic engineer, meaning AI writes most code and you are genuinely more powerful because of it
• Consumer product or fintech instincts are a plus
• Fast-paced, high-agency experience, often in seed or series A environments
• Comfortable shipping without a fully written PRD
• Clear product taste and evidence of shipped work
• Strong individual contributor, not an engineering manager profile

Why it's exciting

• You will join a very small engineering team and help shape its next chapter
• You will own meaningful product and engineering decisions early
• You will work on a real consumer product with real scale and real urgency
• You will work on a small team where good ideas ship fast

What you own

• The highest-leverage product and engineering work across PayMe
• Turning fuzzy problems into concrete plans, technical choices, and shipped product
• Working shoulder-to-shoulder with product, growth, and design
• Using AI heavily, because almost all code here is expected to be written with AI assistance
• Helping set the engineering tone as one of the earliest dedicated engineers on PayMe

What success looks like

• Important product work ships fast and actually changes outcomes
• Engineering is no longer a bottleneck on PayMe’s highest-leverage work
• The team can hand you vague goals and trust you to make strong product and technical decisions
• You raise the bar on speed, ownership, and leverage

What you're not here to do

• Be a narrow specialist who avoids product work
• Wait for a perfect PRD before moving
• Optimize for process over output
• Act like a manager before proving you can build

Our process

• 15 min screen with Kinetic's Lead Engineer
• Half-day async paid project
• Deep dive with PayMe's General Manager
• Team conversations
• Final in-office day

Target turnaround ~2 weeks from start to finish.