Founding Engineer

Sage Recruiting Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 100,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Founder's equity

Job summary

AIRE is seeking a founding engineer to own all technical aspects—from architecture to AI/ML—and eventually lead the engineering team. You will build the Ownership Graph, ML/NLP pipelines, and an agentic commerce engine across 10,000+ brands, while enabling cross-network personalization and scalable merchant integration.

The role offers significant equity and the chance to shape a fast-growing, AI-first platform backed by leading investors. Remote work is available with US/Canada preference.

Qualifications

• Shipped agentic AI to production with tool-calling and memory
• Led an engineering team at a traction-focused company
• Built or worked with a recommendation or personalization system
• Full-stack capabilities across backend, APIs, data pipelines, and frontend when needed
• Experience in a founder/CTO role at a small company (preferably with exit)

Responsibilities

• Own everything technical: architecture, AI/ML, product, and eventually the engineering team
• Build the Ownership Graph connecting consumers, products, brands, and transactions at scale (graph database)
• Develop ML/NLP pipeline to parse 1,400+ merchant formats and auto-populate ownership data
• Create an AI pricing engine across 10,000+ brands with automated resale offers
• Drive consumer intelligence and cross-network personalization, and merchant integration for 100+ ecommerce partners

Skills

Agentic AI to production

Led engineering team

Recommendation/personalization system

Full-stack engineering

Startup / early-stage

Leadership

Tools

Graph databases

Knowledge graphs

React Native

Job description

AIRE, Remote (US preferred, open to Canada)

AIRE is building the Consumer Ownership Graph, the missing data layer for all of commerce.

Every commerce AI system is built on intent data: searches, clicks, browses. That signal is noisy and short-lived. No one mapped ownership. Google mapped searches. Facebook mapped relationships.

We map what people actually own across brands, powering zero-friction resale, AI-driven personalization, and cross-network shopping intelligence. The product is live and growing quickly. 100+ merchant partners live. 161K monthly loyal users.

The product is live, the business model is proven, and the distribution is compounding. We're now sitting on the most unique consumer dataset in commerce - what consumers actually own across 100+ brands. We need the founding engineer who can see what this data unlocks and build it.

The Role

The CEO is a former founder with an exit, and deep experience across payments, e-commerce, fashion and re-commerce. She is non-technical, so you would own everything technical: architecture, AI/ML, the product, and eventually the engineering team. This is a product with proven traction, a strong roadmap, and a massive technical problem worth solving.

What You’ll Build

• The Ownership Graph: Connecting consumers, products, brands, and transactions at scale. Graph database architecture

• ML/NLP Pipeline: E-receipt parsing mapping 1,400+ merchant formats to auto-populate ownership data. Gmail sync at scale.

• Agentic Commerce Engine: AI pricing across 10,000+ brands. Automated resale offers at peak price alignment. Zero-friction, one-click resale

• Consumer Intelligence: Cross-network personalization pipeline. Complete-the-look recommendations. Push intelligence into merchant personalization offerings.

• Merchant Integration Layer: Scalable API infrastructure for 100+ (and growing) Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce partners

What We’re Looking For

• Shipped agentic AI to production: tool-calling, orchestration, memory, with real evals
• Built and led an engineering team as founder, CTO, or Head of Engineering at a company with real traction
• Built, or worked closely with, a recommendation or personalization system core to the product
• Full-stack: backend, APIs, data pipelines, frontend when needed. No separate teams to hand off to
• Joined a company under 50 people, ideally under 10, or founded one. Prior exit a plus
• Wants to lead what this becomes

Nice to have:

• Built consumer products people use regularly
• Fine-tuned models in production
• Graph databases or knowledge graphs
• Mobile (iOS or React Native)
• Led both Engineering and Product
• Engineered at scale: millions of requests a day, high concurrency, large distributed datasets
• Shipped one production system alone: backend, frontend, infra, deploy

The First 90 Days

• First 30 days: Ship something. Close gaps in the existing system, stand up a working AI/ML prototype, and put together an architecture plan

• First 60 days: AI-powered feature in the hands of real users. 3-month technical roadmap planned. First 1–2 engineers entering the hiring pipeline. Contributing to partner conversations with real demos

• First 90 days: Multiple AI/ML features shipping. Consumer Ownership Graph meaningfully improved: better data, better matching, better experience. Beginning to build the team

Where We Are

• $206M+ authenticated inventory. ML-powered Gmail sync parsing 1,400+ merchant receipt formats

• 347K consumer wardrobes

• AI first: We've built all of this as a lean, AI-first team - multiple functions led by one person using modern AI tooling.

• Backed by angel investors from the best in tech (OpenAI, Google, Stitchfix, Meta, Pinterest, Shopstyle) and fashion (LVMH, editor-in-chief at InStyle) and top founders like: Julie Bornstein (ex-Stitch Fix COO, Daydream founder), Brian Sugar (founder PopSugar). Named Vogue Business 2025 Fashion Startup to Watch.

Compensation

• Significant founding-level ownership: this is one of the most generous equity packages you'll see at this stage, priced at current pre-seed valuation before the next fundraise. Base cash salary: $100K-$250K USD, negotiable depending on experience and equity split. Founder-level cash, below market by design — the delta is the equity.

Location:

Remote (US or Canada)