Founding Engineer, AI/ML

Confidential; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

IllTip in San Francisco is seeking a founding software engineer to build the intelligence layer for an AI-powered recruiting marketplace. This in-person role offers ownership from early design through production and collaboration with company leadership to ship end-to-end features.

You will own ML systems behind recommendations, ranking, and retrieval, and build LLM-powered candidate-to-role matching. Expect fast cadence releases and challenging data pipelines and services.

Qualifications

• 2 to 5 years of software engineering experience
• Applied ML engineering experience, ideally with production recommendation, ranking, or matching systems
• Experience shipping LLM-powered features through LLM APIs, plus hands-on work with PyTorch, TensorFlow, or a similar ML framework
• Strong production engineering skills in TypeScript or Python, including maintaining data pipelines and services
• Solid computer science fundamentals and comfort with fast-paced, iterative startup work
• Nice to have: React, Supabase, Prisma, search infrastructure such as Typesense, embeddings, vector search, or workflow automation tools.

Responsibilities

• Own the machine learning systems behind recommendations, ranking, and retrieval.
• Build and improve LLM-powered candidate-to-role matching.
• Turn product goals into working features and release them at a fast cadence.
• Design, build, and maintain production data pipelines and services that support models.
• Partner closely with company leadership to deliver product systems end to end.

Skills

Software engineering experience

Applied ML engineering

LLM-powered features

Python or TypeScript

CS fundamentals

Startup environment

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

LLM APIs

Data pipelines

Typesense

Vector search

Prisma

Supabase

React

Python

TypeScript

Job description

Visa sponsorship available. Candidates from anywhere can apply, but the role requires in-person work in San Francisco. This is a founding engineering role at an early-stage, AI-powered recruiting marketplace. You will build the intelligence layer that matches candidates with suitable roles, covering recommendations, ranking, retrieval, and LLM-driven matching. You will take ownership of these systems from early design through production and work directly with company leadership to ship end-to-end product features.

Responsibilities

• Own the machine learning systems behind recommendations, ranking, and retrieval.
• Build and improve LLM-powered candidate-to-role matching.
• Turn product goals into working features and release them at a fast cadence.
• Design, build, and maintain production data pipelines and services that support models.
• Partner closely with company leadership to deliver product systems end to end.

Requirements

• 2 to 5 years of software engineering experience building and shipping production product features.
• Applied ML engineering experience, ideally with production recommendation, ranking, or matching systems at a product company or startup.
• Experience shipping LLM-powered features through LLM APIs, plus hands-on work with PyTorch, TensorFlow, or a similar ML framework.
• Strong production engineering skills in TypeScript or Python, including maintaining data pipelines and services.
• Solid computer science fundamentals and comfort with fast-paced, iterative startup work.
• Nice to have: React, Supabase, Prisma, search infrastructure such as Typesense, embeddings, vector search, or workflow automation tools. Evidence of technical strength through education, open-source work, or personal projects is also valued.