Founding Engineer

Fernstone (YC F25); New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Fernstone, an NYC-based AI-driven insurance startup, is hiring a founding engineer to join as the second engineering hire. You’ll own critical systems, shape the technical direction, and work directly with operators to build a product that moves insurance faster and with better terms.

You’ll ship end-to-end features, design across the stack, and develop reliable AI-enabled workflows. If you’re excited by ambiguity and building in a hands-on, product-focused environment, join us in the office.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience.
• Shipped and maintained production software that users depend on.
• Able to take ambiguous business problems and turn them into focused solutions.
• Strong backend and relational database fundamentals; comfortable building a polished frontend.
• Practical experience building with language models and evaluating their output.
• Experience using AI development tools and taking ownership for the code shipped.

Responsibilities

• Own outcomes: partner with operations to learn how insurance work gets done and decide what to build.
• Build across the stack: interface, application logic, data model, and infrastructure.
• Engineer for reliability: create workflows where accuracy matters and events unfold over days or weeks.
• Develop practical AI: build systems that interpret information and automate multi-step work.

Skills

Backend development

Frontend development

Relational databases

AI/ML tools

Language models

Production software

Problem solving

Code review & debugging

Job description

About Fernstone

Fernstone is building a new kind of insurance company: we combine AI with expert advisors to place insurance faster and at better terms. We think AI will fundamentally reshape how insurance is bought and sold – and the new winners in this $1T category will compete directly with legacy insurers instead of selling software to them. We’ve raised $3M from Y Combinator and other notable investors, and have grown from 0 to 500+ customers since launching at the start of the year. Fernstone was founded by James (BCG, Traba, UChicago), and **Bryant **(Google, SentiLink, Vanderbilt). We work in-person in our NYC office.

The Role

As founding engineer (and engineering hire #2), you’ll have a substantial role in building our product. You’ll work directly with the operators using your product, own critical systems across the stack, and help set the technical direction of the company. Your work will have a direct impact on how we operate, serve customers, and grow.

What You’ll Work On

• Own outcomes: partner with our operations team to learn how insurance work gets done, identify the biggest opportunities, and decide what to build.
• Build across the stack: Design and build complete features across the interface, application logic, data model, and infrastructure.
• Engineer for the real world: Create reliable workflows where accuracy matters, outside systems fail, and events may unfold over days or weeks
• Develop practical AI: Build systems that interpret information, automate multi-step work, and recognize when a person needs to step in.

What We Look For

• 2+ YOE
• You’ve shipped and maintained production software that people depend on.
• You can take an ambiguous business problem, ask good questions, and turn it into a focused solution.
• You have strong backend and relational database fundamentals, and you’re comfortable building a polished frontend.
• You think carefully about data correctness, failure handling, and how systems behave after deployment.
• You have practical experience building with language models, including evaluating their output and handling mistakes.
• You use AI development tools effectively and take responsibility for understanding, reviewing, and debugging the code you ship.