Founding Engineering Lead

Wwshemi; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 400,000; Full time

Job summary

Wwshemi in New York City is seeking a lead engineering role to shape the technical architecture and product direction while leading a small engineering pod and remaining hands-on with critical builds.

You will recruit and grow the team, own platform architecture, set AI development standards, and guide model strategy. Initial focus is hands-on delivery with leadership expanding over time, in a fast-moving, AI-native startup.

Qualifications

• 5–8 years engineering experience; exceptional candidates may have 4–5.
• Experience training and deploying ML models in production, beyond third-party LLM APIs.
• Experience at an AI-native company with technical leadership and talent attraction.
• End-to-end ownership of technical architecture including infrastructure and cost decisions.
• Experience setting engineering standards and leading delivery practices.
• Hands-on experience shipping production software and using AI coding agents.
• Comfort with ambiguity and working with inherited code.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead a pod of engineers, supporting their growth, performance, and hiring while personally shipping critical work.
• Own platform architecture and make build-versus-buy and infrastructure decisions.
• Establish engineering standards for AI-assisted development, including review criteria, definition of done, release cadence, and on-call practices.
• Lead technical designs and initial implementations for new initiatives.
• Assess applied machine learning research and determine what is ready for production systems.
• Partner with technical leadership on product roadmap, model strategy, and machine learning direction.
• Initially spend most of your time building, with leadership responsibilities growing over time.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Production ML

End-to-end architecture

Hands-on coding

Hiring & mentoring

Job description

A free account gets 3 random job picks daily. This role may not be included. Full access opens this job and every role, with descriptions and direct apply links.

Lead engineering for an early-stage SaaS company applying machine learning to enterprise software. You will shape technical architecture and product direction while leading a small engineering pod and remaining hands-on with critical builds.

What You'll Do

• Build and lead a pod of engineers, supporting their growth, performance, and hiring while personally shipping critical work.
• Own platform architecture and make build-versus-buy and infrastructure decisions.
• Establish engineering standards for AI-assisted development, including review criteria, definition of done, release cadence, and on-call practices.
• Lead technical designs and initial implementations for new initiatives.
• Assess applied machine learning research and determine what is ready for production systems.
• Partner with technical leadership on product roadmap, model strategy, and machine learning direction.
• Initially spend most of your time building, with leadership responsibilities growing over time.

What We're Looking For

• Typically 5 to 8 years of engineering experience, with 4 to 5 years considered for exceptional candidates.
• Commercial experience training and deploying machine learning models in production, beyond integrating third-party LLM APIs.
• Experience at an AI-native company, with technical leadership or ownership and a record of attracting strong engineering talent.
• End-to-end ownership of technical architecture, including infrastructure and cost decisions.
• Experience setting engineering standards and leading delivery practices for a team.
• Recent hands-on experience shipping production software, strong applied ML judgment, and effective use of AI coding agents.
• Comfort working through ambiguity, inherited code, and hands-on implementation.

Base salary: $200,000 to $400,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in New York City, United States.