Founding Engineer - Build the Physics Foundation Model

Godela (YC X25); San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

A cutting-edge tech startup is seeking a Founding Software Engineer to build systems that leverage physics-informed models. The ideal candidate will have strong software engineering skills, experience in ML/AI application development, and a mindset geared towards ownership and innovation. This is a full-time position located in San Francisco, California, with a competitive salary ranging from $120,000 to $180,000 per year.

Qualifications

• Track record of delivering high-impact systems in fast-moving environments.
• Experience scaling ML inference systems is a plus.
• Familiarity with engineering domains such as simulation or scientific computing.

Responsibilities

• Build robust, user-facing systems that expose physics-informed models.
• Own end-to-end delivery: prototype → product → production.
• Translate ML research into usable, scalable tools.
• Design APIs and services for training pipelines and customer-facing interfaces.

Skills

Strong software engineering fundamentals — Python

Backend frameworks (FastAPI, Flask, etc.)

Experience building and shipping applications that integrate ML/AI systems

Comfort working across the stack (infra, APIs, data, UI)

Hands-on cloud experience (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Containerization (Docker)

Orchestration (Kubernetes or equivalent)

Mindset: ownership, urgency, and comfort with ambiguity

Tools

CI/CD pipelines

Infrastructure-as-code

MLOps frameworks

Job description

A cutting-edge tech startup is seeking a Founding Software Engineer to build systems that leverage physics-informed models. The ideal candidate will have strong software engineering skills, experience in ML/AI application development, and a mindset geared towards ownership and innovation. This is a full-time position located in San Francisco, California, with a competitive salary ranging from $120,000 to $180,000 per year.