Founding Full Stack Engineer

AI Talent Now; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

AI Talent Now is seeking a Full-Stack Software Engineer in San Francisco to lead the development of the end-to-end experience for innovative smart glasses. Applicants should have 2-5 years of experience, with a strong focus on building scalable systems and real-time video applications.

The role demands a candidate with a proven track record in startups or fast-paced environments, ideally with hands-on experience on mobile and web interfaces. This position requires at least 5 days a week onsite in San Francisco.

Qualifications

• 2-5 years of experience in software engineering.
• Experience with real-time video and low-latency systems.
• Full-stack capability in a modern startup environment.

Responsibilities

• Ship the product experience for smart glasses.
• Build and optimize streaming pipelines.
• Own backend APIs and data layer.

Skills

Full-stack development on modern startup stack

Real-time video and streaming experience

Mobile applications shipping experience

Frontend/Design/UX skills

Grit proxies such as Olympiad medals

Education

Strong CS/Engineering background

Tools

AWS

GCP

Job description

San Francisco, United States | Posted on 06/18/2026

Responsibilities

• Ship the end-to-end product experience: smart glasses - backend - companion app that real customers can use without an engineer present
• Build and optimize the real-time video/streaming pipeline connecting glasses to the AI core within tight latency budgets
• Own the backend APIs and data layer that the glasses and AI services depend on — reliable, observable, and scalable to early customer load
• Build the mobile/desktop client for setup, monitoring, and workflow configuration
• Stand up the deployment and release path so new builds reach hardware in the field safely
• Define product architecture and engineering practices as the team scales — making smart, scalable decisions early that won't need to be reworked
• Be the cross-stack generalist who unblocks the team: debug from frontend through backend to device

Requirements

• Seniority: 2-5 years of experience post-grad SWE, ideally early-stage startup exposure.
• Built and shipped scalable systems zero-to-one with real user traction, owning the entire app end-to-end—backend + APIs + data layer AND the frontend/mobile client that a real user touches (backend-only specialists route to Founding Engineer).
• Founding engineer (1-5) early-startup experience that shipped OR intense-culture company (Tesla, SpaceX, Anduril, top YC).
• Big-company tenure (Meta Reality Labs, Snap, Apple Vision, Google, big streaming infra) is a bonus only when on a directly relevant team (AR/smart-glasses, real-time video/streaming, on-device/edge ML) OR paired with a builder signal (founder / early-startup / side projects / OSS). A long single big-tech tenure with no builder signal and no relevant-team work is a negative.
• Real-time video, streaming, or low-latency pipeline experience (YouTube, Twitch, Cloudflare, Mux).
• Education: Strong CS/Eng background OR demonstrated equivalent shipping record.
• Grit proxies: Olympiad medals, USACO Platinum, competitive programming rank, or founded-while-studying.
• Full-stack ability on a modern startup stack (AWS, Supabase, Railway, GCP, ...).
• Frontend / Design / UX craft.
• Experience shipping mobile applications (iOS, Android, or strong React Native with native bridges).
• Makes mature, scalable architectural decisions independently.
• Hacker house (live on site) ideal; minimum on-site 5 days/week in SF.