Founding Engineer (AI agents startup)

Jack; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (1–2%)

Competitive salary

Job summary

Jack in San Francisco is seeking a Founding Engineer to build AI agents that help everyday Americans navigate government systems and get the benefits they're owed.

You'd be engineer #1, owning everything technical, shipping v1 yourself, and then hiring and leading engineers #2 to #5.

You’ll own end-to-end portals, security for sensitive data, and the core stack, with a base salary between $180k and $250k plus 1–2% equity, and you’d be in the SF office 3–4 days per week.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to build full-stack solutions end-to-end.
• Experience leading early-stage products from zero to one.
• Proven track record shipping secure, production-grade systems.

Responsibilities

• Own all technical aspects of the product as the first engineer.
• Ship v1 and then hire/lead engineers #2–#5.
• Design and secure infrastructure for sensitive credentials and payments.
• Define stack, tooling, architecture, and build-vs-buy decisions.

Skills

Full-stack development

Founding startup experience

Secure production systems

CS degree

Education

CS degree or equivalent

Job description

We're recruiting a Founding Engineer for a well-funded stealth startup in San Francisco building AI agents that help everyday Americans navigate government systems and get the benefits they're owed.

You'd be engineer #1. You own everything technical, ship v1 yourself, and then hire and lead engineers #2 to #5.

What you'd own:

• AI agents that get through real government portals end to end: logins, MFA, sessions, fragile multi-step flows
• Getting the first product into real users' hands
• Trust and security infrastructure for sensitive credentials, personal info and payment methods
• Every core technical call: stack, tooling, architecture, build vs buy

You're probably a fit if you have:

• 5+ years of engineering with real full-stack range (frontend, backend and infra, on your own)
• Founding or early startup experience, or you led a 0-to-1 product end to end
• Built secure production systems somewhere high stakes: fintech, payments, health, government, payroll or identity
• A CS degree or similar

Who this isn't for:

• Directors or managers who'd be stepping back into IC work. This is hands-on.
• Big-company specialists who haven't built something from zero
• Prototype-only builders who haven't run secure infrastructure
• A lot of short stints in the last few years
• Anyone who can't be in the SF office 3-4 days a week

Pay: $180K to $250K base plus 1% to 2% equity.

Visa: H-1B transfers are OK. They can't sponsor a new visa.