Founding Engineer

ElitePath Consulting; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

ESOP equity

Flexible hours

Generous PTO

Global offsites

Education support

Clear advancement path

Job summary

ElitePath Talent is seeking a Founding Engineer / Member of Technical Staff to be an AI-native, full-stack builder. You will rapidly prototype, ship, and iterate on products that help teams understand, debug, and fix AI systems in production.

Join small, high-impact pods to take ambiguous problems from concept to reality using modern AI tools and feedback loops. We have multiple roles at different career stages and are excited about this space and our mission.

Qualifications

• We’re looking for engineers who ship fast, take ownership, and thrive in ambiguity.
• Strong candidates have a track record of quickly shipping real products or features, ideally in startup or 0-1 environments, and actively use AI tools to accelerate their workflow.

Responsibilities

• Turn ideas into working prototypes in hours/days, not weeks.
• Iterate continuously based on user and system feedback.
• Use LLMs, agents, and AI tooling as a core part of your workflow.
• Design systems that assume AI-assisted development and execution.
• From concept → prototype → production → iteration.
• No strict boundaries between frontend/backend/infra.
• Collaborate closely with 2-4 engineers; own outcomes, not just features.
• Investigate failures in real-world AI systems; build tools to diagnose issues.
• Understand real customer problems; incorporate feedback into product iterations.

Skills

AI tooling

LLMs

Frontend & Backend

Tools

React

Python

Node.js

Job description

Company Description:

ElitePath Talent is a talent strategy and workforce advisory firm focused on helping high-growth organizations build and scale high-performing teams. Based in North America, we specialize in providing end-to-end hiring strategies, customized talent acquisition services, and workforce planning solutions. In partnership with Logan Talent, we support global hiring initiatives and connect businesses with top-tier talent across key markets.

About the Role:

As a Founding Engineer / Member of Technical Staff, you’ll be an AI-native, full-stack

builder responsible for rapidly prototyping, shipping, and iterating on products that help teams

understand, debug, and fix AI systems in production. Working in small, high-impact pods, you’ll

take ambiguous problems from concept to reality, using modern AI tools and tight feedback

loops to continuously improve what we build.

We have multiple roles open on this team and are looking for engineers at different stages in their career

who are excited about this space and our mission.

What You’ll Do:

Build and ship rapidly

• Turn ideas into working prototypes in hours/days, not weeks
• Iterate continuously based on user and system feedback

Work AI-native

• Use LLMs, agents, and AI tooling as a core part of your workflow
• Design systems that assume AI-assisted development and execution

Own problems end-to-end

• From concept → prototype → production → iteration
• No strict boundaries between frontend/backend/infra

Operate in small, high-impact pods

• Collaborate closely with 2-4 engineers
• Own outcomes, not just features

Debug and improve AI systems

• Investigate failures in real-world AI systems
• Build tools and systems to diagnose and resolve issues

Engage with users

• Understand real customer problems
• Incorporate feedback directly into product iterations

What We Look For:

• We’re looking for engineers who ship fast, take ownership, and thrive in ambiguity. You default to building and testing over over-planning, and you’re comfortable turning incomplete ideas into working products.
• We care more about how you work than how long you’ve worked. Strong candidates have a track record of quickly shipping real products or features, ideally in startup or 0-1 environments, and actively use AI tools (LLMs, coding agents) to accelerate their workflow.
• You’re comfortable working across the stack — from frontend to backend, APIs, and data — and have strong debugging instincts.
• Technically, you’ll likely have experience with at least one backend language (e.g. Python or Node.js), modern frontend frameworks (e.g. React), and a solid understanding of building and operating systems end-to-end.
• You stand out if you’ve built impressive things outside of work, can clearly demonstrate how you use AI to move faster, have shipped and iterated on messy v1s, and think in terms of systems, feedback loops, and continuous improvement rather than just features.
• Bonus if you’ve worked with LLM-based systems (RAG, agents, evals), observability/debugging tools, or contributed to open source projects.

What We Offer:

• Join at the ground floor of a GenAI infrastructure company defining a new category
• Work directly with senior product and engineering leadership
• Build production systems that AI teams depend on daily
• ESOP equity
• Flexible hours
• Generous PTO
• Global offsites
• Education support
• Clear advancement path