Founding Engineer: Build the Core of Industrial Systems

Avent Industrial Inc; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity

Relocation support

Tools and resources for great work

Job summary

Avent Industrial Inc is seeking a founding engineer to build the core system that drives industrial commerce. The role involves developing the intelligence layer for quoting, procurement, and decision-making across a vast industrial network. Candidates should possess qualities such as high ownership, systems thinking, and speed with judgment. The position offers a competitive salary and equity, with a focus on real impact and teamwork in San Francisco.

Qualifications

• You take direction, not instructions, and see things through to completion.
• You understand how complex, imperfect systems actually work.
• You optimize for what works for the customer, not just theory.
• You can move fast without losing sight of goals.

Responsibilities

• Build the core intelligence layer for quoting and procurement.
• Design systems to handle messy real-world data.
• Define abstractions for deployment across the industry.
• Own critical parts of the system end-to-end.

Skills

High ownership

Systems thinker

Real-world builder

Speed with judgment

Tools

Next.js

TypeScript

Python (FastAPI)

PostgreSQL

Job description

We’re looking for a founding engineer to build the system that runs industrial commerce.

Avent is turning the global supply chain into a machine-to-machine system where products are quoted, sourced, and fulfilled at software speed.

This is not about building features. You will be building the core system that real companies rely on to operate, software that directly impacts how quickly the physical world moves.

What you’ll do

• Build the core intelligence layer that powers quoting, procurement, and decision-making across a $2T industrial network

• Design and ship systems that reason over messy real-world data and turn it into reliable actions

• Define the abstractions and primitives that FDEs use to deploy Avent across the industry

• Own critical parts of the system end-to-end and shape how it evolves as it scales

What we’re looking for

• High ownership — you take direction, not instructions, and see things through to completion

• Systems thinker — you understand how complex, imperfect systems actually work and build accordingly

• Real-world builder — you optimize for what works for the customer, not what feels correct in theory

• Speed with judgment — you can move fast without losing sight of where the system needs to go

Tech we use: Next.js, TypeScript, Python (FastAPI), PostgreSQL

Our culture

• We own outcomes, not tasks
  We take direction, not instructions. We run with things and see them through.

• Speed is our advantage
  We move fast, close loops, and prioritize execution over perfection.

• We care about impact, not optics
  We’re here to build something real. Decisions are driven by what works, not how it looks.

• We’re in this together
  We work in person in San Francisco. Some days are long, some aren’t, but everyone here cares deeply about what we’re building and shows up accordingly.

Compensation

• Competitive salary + meaningful equity

• We remove anything that slows you down, relocation, tools, and whatever you need to do great work

• You’ll be part of a small team building something massive, take on responsibility far earlier than you should, and have the most fun along the way