Founding Engineer

Selby Jennings; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Selby Jennings is partnering with an early-stage AI company to recruit a Founding Engineer in the NYC & Chicago area. You will join as one of the earliest technical hires and help shape both the product and the company.

You'll work with founders and engineering leadership to build a core AI product, influence architecture and culture, and scale from early traction to a robust platform with knowledge systems, retrieval, and AI-powered research tools.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience.
• Experience building production AI applications.
• Experience with RAG, retrieval, search, knowledge systems, or agentic AI.
• Strong product instincts and customer-focused thinking.
• Ability to take ambiguous problems and drive them to production.
• Comfortable working across multiple areas of the stack when needed.
• High ownership and strong communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Building backend systems that power knowledge-intensive workflows.
• Designing and improving search, retrieval, and AI-assisted product experiences.
• Building customer-facing AI products that solve real business problems.
• Developing systems that help users find, organize, and leverage information more effectively.
• Working directly with customers to understand pain points and translate feedback into product features.
• Improving system quality, evaluation, reliability, and observability.
• Helping establish engineering best practices and technical standards.

Skills

Software engineering

Production AI applications

RAG and retrieval systems

Search and knowledge systems

Agentic AI

Customer-focused thinking

Strong communication

Job description

Founding Engineer (PR/601398) Totowa, New Jersey

Salary: USD150000 - USD180000 per annum + Equity

Founding Engineer (AI / Knowledge Systems) | NYC & Chicago

We're partnered with an early-stage AI company backed by a $4B asset manager that is building the next generation of research intelligence tools for sophisticated, knowledge-driven organizations.

The company was founded by leaders coming from both trading and large-scale technology environments, bringing together deep expertise in quantitative research, software engineering, and AI. Their mission is to help organizations turn fragmented information and institutional knowledge into something searchable, actionable, and operational.

They are now looking for a Founding Engineer to join as one of the earliest technical hires and play a major role in shaping both the product and the company.

The Opportunity

This is not a role where you'll own a small piece of a large organization.

You'll work directly with the founders, early customers, and engineering leadership to help build a core AI product from early traction into a scalable platform. As one of the first engineers, you'll have significant influence over architecture, product direction, engineering culture, and long-term technical strategy.

The platform sits at the intersection of:

• LLMs
• RAG and retrieval systems
• Search and knowledge discovery
• Agentic AI workflows
• AI-powered research tools

What You'll Be Working On

• Building backend systems that power knowledge-intensive workflows
• Designing and improving search, retrieval, and AI-assisted product experiencesBuilding customer-facing AI products that solve real business problems
• Developing systems that help users find, organize, and leverage information more effectively
• Working directly with customers to understand pain points and translate feedback into product features
• Improving system quality, evaluation, reliability, and observability
• Helping establish engineering best practices and technical standards

What They're Looking For

• 5+ years of software engineering experience
• Experience building production AI applications
• Experience with RAG, retrieval, search, knowledge systems, or agentic AI
• Strong product instincts and customer-focused thinking
• Ability to take ambiguous problems and drive them to production
• Comfortable working across multiple areas of the stack when needed
• High ownership and strong communication skills

Nice to Have:

• Experience working on enterprise AI platforms
• Experience with knowledge graphs, semantic search, or developer tooling

Why This Role?

Become a true founding engineer at a company with strong early momentum

Build products at the intersection of AI, search, knowledge systems, and quantitative research

Work directly with founders who come from trading and big tech backgrounds

Have a measurable impact on product direction and company growth

Join a small, high-caliber team with minimal bureaucracy

Receive meaningful equity and ownership from day one

Help define how the company builds products, not just what it builds