Founding Engineer San Francisco or New York

Economic Intelligence Co.; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Economic Intelligence Co. is hiring a founding staff-level engineer to build the core software behind company-building agents in San Francisco or New York.

You will own the stack from agent backends to data collection, internal tooling, and infrastructure, enabling AI systems to find demand, acquire customers, deliver work, and turn activity into trusted records. The role requires 5+ years of end-to-end ownership of complex systems, with strong Python and TypeScript skills.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of experience owning complex systems end to end.
• Strong track record in building production systems used by real people.
• Comfort working with founders, researchers, and incubation teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the product and platform layer for the agents: workflows, tools, state, permissions, execution, observability.
• Build agent backends and harnesses enabling AI to find demand, acquire customers, deliver work, and create verifiable traces.
• Develop data collection systems across workflows: agent actions, customer interactions, feedback, delivery quality, revenue events.
• Create internal tooling for incubation teams, researchers, reviewers, and operators.
• Build infrastructure turning real-world activity into reliable records: provenance, lineage, auditability, quality checks, verified outcomes.
• Uphold engineering standards for architecture, code quality, speed, reliability, security, and taste.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

Go

Rust

SQL

Data systems

Job description

Engineering · Company Building Agents San Francisco or New York · SF preferred

You will build the core software systems behind Eico's company-building agents.

This is a founding engineering role for a staff/principal-caliber generalistwho can operate across the stack: agent backends, data collection, productsurfaces, workflow orchestration, internal tools, infrastructure, reliability,and verification. Your work will make it possible for AI systems to finddemand, acquire customers, deliver work, and turn activity into trusted recordsthe rest of Eico can build on.

We are hiring a small number of unusually strongtechnical people early.

What you'll own:

• 01 The product and platform layer for Eico's company-building agents: workflows, tools, state, permissions, execution, and observability.
• 02 Agent backends and harnesses that let AI systems find demand, acquire customers, deliver work, and create traces we can train from and verify.
• 03 Data collection systems across the workflows where company-building happens: agent actions, customer interactions, feedback, delivery quality, revenue events, and failures.
• 04 Internal tools for incubation teams, researchers, reviewers, and operators to inspect, improve, and trust what agents are doing.
• 05 Infrastructure that turns messy real-world activity into reliable records: provenance, lineage, auditability, quality checks, and verified outcomes.
• 06 The engineering standard for the company: architecture, code quality, speed, reliability, security, and taste.

What we're looking for:

• Staff-level, principal-level, or equivalent engineering ability. Titles matter less than evidence.
• At least 5 years of experience, with a record of owning important systems end to end.
• Top engineering-company or frontier startup background preferred: OpenAI,Anthropic, DeepMind, Meta, Google, Stripe, Databricks, Palantir, Scale AI,Ramp, Cursor, Cognition, Harvey, Perplexity, Retool, Vercel, Linear, Airbnb,Uber, Coinbase, Plaid, Figma, or equivalent.
• Has built production systems that were complex, high-leverage, and used by real people.
• Strong across at least two of: backend systems, data infrastructure, full-stack product, AI/agent systems, distributed systems, infra, security, or internal tooling.
• Strong Python and TypeScript preferred. Go, Rust, SQL, data systems, cloud infra, or ML tooling are strong pluses.
• Can work close to AI systems: tool use, eval loops, RAG, inference APIs, agent orchestration, data collection, and model-facing workflows.
• Can turn ambiguity into architecture, then into shipped product.
• Has taste. Builds simple systems where possible and serious systems where necessary.
• High-agency operator. Comfortable being handed the hardest, messiest technical problems and owning them.

This is probably not for you if:

• You need a narrow, fully specified engineering lane.
• You only want to build clean backend services and avoid product, data, or AI messiness.
• You have not owned production systems end to end.
• You are uncomfortable working directly with founders, researchers, and incubation teams.
• You optimize for process over speed, or speed over correctness. Eico needs both.