Founding Engineer - TerraByte

Pioneer Square Labs; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity

Ground-floor opportunity

Job summary

A tech startup is seeking a Founding Engineer to join their team in Seattle, Washington. This role involves architecting and building scalable backend systems while working closely with founders on product direction. Ideal candidates have 4-7 years of software engineering experience, a track record of scaling production systems, and are comfortable navigating early-stage ambiguity. Competitive salary and equity options are offered at this ground-floor opportunity where your decisions will shape the company.

Qualifications

• 4–7 years of software engineering experience with strong fundamentals.
• Demonstrated track record building and scaling production systems.
• Comfortable in early-stage ambiguity and able to define problems.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build scalable backend and infrastructure systems.
• Work across the full stack, owning problems end-to-end.
• Establish engineering standards, tooling, and practices.

Skills

Software engineering experience

Backend and infrastructure

Modern AI development tools

Problem definition

Tools

Claude

Cursor

Codex

Job description

Founding Engineer

Terrabyte AI · San Francisco, CA · Full-Time

About Terrabyte

Terrabyte is building the intelligence layer for Earth — turning geospatial data into actionable insight at scale. We're an early-stage company moving fast, working directly with founders, and shipping products that matter. If you want to be part of building something from the ground up, this is the role.

The Role

We're looking for a Founding Engineer to help us scale our product and engineering foundation as we grow. You'll be one of the first engineers at Terrabyte, which means you'll have significant ownership over technical direction, architecture decisions, and the culture we build together. This isn't a role for someone who wants to execute a pre-written roadmap — it's for someone who wants to help write it.

You’ll work directly with the founders, move fast, and care deeply about building systems that are both production-ready and built to last.

What You’ll Do

• Architect and build scalable backend and infrastructure systems that power Terrabyte's core product
• Work across the full stack as needed — owning problems end-to-end rather than handing off at boundaries
• Establish engineering standards, tooling, and practices that will scale with the team
• Collaborate closely with founders on product direction and technical trade-offs
• Leverage modern AI coding tools to move faster and build more

What We’re Looking For

• 4–7 years of software engineering experience with strong fundamentals across backend and infrastructure
• Demonstrated track record building and scaling production systems
• Comfortable in early-stage ambiguity — you can define the problem, not just solve it
• Fluent with modern AI development tools (Claude, Cursor, Codex, etc.) alongside traditional engineering practices
• High ownership mindset and a bias toward shipping

Nice to have: Prior startup experience or time at a high-growth engineering org (hyperscaler, strong eng culture company)

Why Terrabyte

• Ground-floor opportunity at a company with a clear mission and early traction
• Work directly with founders — your decisions will shape the company
• Competitive salary + meaningful early-stage equity
• San Francisco, CA (in-person)