Founding Engineer — Build AI Recruiting Platform

talentpluto; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

TalentPluto, an early-stage AI startup in New York City, is hiring its first Founding Engineer to shape the technical direction and own major parts of the product and stack. You’ll design, build, and ship features end-to-end, from data models and APIs to user interfaces, while setting foundations for infrastructure and engineering processes.

You’ll work directly with the founders and customers, help interview and onboard future engineers, and influence architecture, tooling, and best practices.

Qualifications

• Experience shipping real products end-to-end at a startup or small, fast-moving team.
• Comfortable across the stack (frontend, backend, databases, and occasionally mobile).
• Enjoy owning problems, not just tasks, and care deeply about user outcomes.
• Able to work with ambiguous specs and iterate directly with founders and users.
• Value clean, pragmatic engineering: tests, clear abstractions, and simple designs.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and ship features across the stack, from backend data models and APIs to user-facing interfaces.
• Collaborate directly with the founders and customers to turn fuzzy requirements into simple, shipped solutions.
• Help choose core tools, frameworks, and architectural patterns for the platform.
• Set up and maintain foundations for infrastructure, including CI/CD, observability, testing, security, and performance baselines.
• Establish engineering best practices such as code review norms, testing standards, and release processes.
• Contribute to building pipeline management UIs, multi-tenant systems, and integrations with payments and external services.
• Help interview, hire, and onboard future engineers and contractors as the team grows.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues, and contribute to documentation and internal tooling where needed.

Skills

End-to-end shipping

Full-stack development

Startup experience

Ownership

Clear communication

Tools

React

Next.js

TypeScript/JavaScript

PostgreSQL

Node.js

Drizzle ORM

Vercel

Job description

TalentPluto, an early-stage AI startup in New York City, is hiring its first Founding Engineer to shape the technical direction and own major parts of the product and stack. You’ll design, build, and ship features end-to-end, from data models and APIs to user interfaces, while setting foundations for infrastructure and engineering processes.

You’ll work directly with the founders and customers, help interview and onboard future engineers, and influence architecture, tooling, and best practices.