Founding Engineer

Arrows; New York (NY); On-site; USD 234,000 - 286,000; Full time

Job summary

Arrows in New York City is seeking a Founding Engineer to join onsite and help scale an early-stage AI product. You’ll own features end to end, shape engineering culture, and work directly with the founders as one of the first engineers in the building.

You'll tackle real scaling challenges across distributed systems, cloud-native infrastructure, and a fast-moving startup environment. Expect high ownership, direct client interaction, and a roadmap-driven role with significant impact.

Qualifications

• Experience with distributed systems and cloud-native architectures.
• Startup experience scaling existing systems.
• Ability to work directly with founders and customers.
• Ownership mindset and problem-solving.

Responsibilities

• Architecting and scaling a distributed, cloud-native system already under real production load.
• Owning core backend infrastructure across microservices, containers, and queues.
• Building and shipping full stack product features end to end.
• Working directly with founders and customers to shape technical direction.
• Solving genuine scaling and coordination challenges, not theoretical ones.
• Helping set the technical and cultural bar for engineering hires that follow.

Skills

Distributed systems

Startup experience

Communication with clients

Ownership mindset

Tools

Python

TypeScript

FastAPI

PostgreSQL

Docker

Azure

AWS

GCP

Job description

Founding Engineer | NYC (Onsite) | Early-Stage AI Startup | $260k + equity

We're working with a well-funded, seed-stage AI startup with a small founding team and a live product already generating revenue. They're past the zero-to-one stage, now they need someone who can scale what's already working and keep it standing as load grows.

This is far more than a typical engineering role. You'll be one of the first engineers in the building, working directly with the founders on the hardest technical problems, owning entire features end to end, and helping define engineering culture from scratch.

What happens when a system has to process hundreds of components in parallel and starts fighting itself over memory and sequencing? That's the kind of problem a founding engineer would be walking straight into here..

What you'll be doing:

• Architecting and scaling a distributed, cloud-native system already under real production load
• Owning core backend infrastructure across microservices, containers, and queues
• Building and shipping full stack product features end to end
• Working directly with founders and customers to shape technical direction
• Solving genuine scaling and coordination challenges, not theoretical ones
• Helping set the technical and cultural bar for engineering hires that follow

What they're looking for:

• Strong distributed systems intuition, not just AI-assisted coding ability
• Cloud infrastructure experience, Azure, AWS, or GCP
• Startup experience where you scaled an existing system rather than started one from zero
• Comfortable communicating directly with clients, FDE-type profile valued
• A data-driven, ownership-first mindset with genuine appetite for hard problems

Python, TypeScript, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Cloud Infrastructure (Azure, AWS, or GCP), Docker, Distributed Systems.