Founding Software Engineer

Acceler8 Talent; California, Northern (MO, KY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Acceler8 Talent is seeking a Founding Software Engineer for a very early-stage AI research platform focused on turning high-level investment questions into auditable workflows. You will own end-to-end system development across Python backend, agent orchestration, evaluation, and data infrastructure.

This hands-on role targets a high-intelligence Python generalist who will identify system failures and drive improvements end-to-end, with equity and the chance to shape architecture, product, and

Qualifications

• Strong Python engineering and production-grade backend experience.
• Experience with applied AI, research-engineering, or backend systems.
• Ability to take ambiguous projects from concept to production.
• Good judgment on software architecture, data systems, and product quality.

Responsibilities

• Build a production-grade Python platform for AI-driven investment research.
• Design agents that break complex questions into research tasks.
• Develop systems for generating and safely executing auditable data-science code.
• Evaluate reasoning quality, reliability, and usefulness.
• Ensure the system's conclusions and processes are traceable.
• Diagnose failures across decomposition, reasoning, tool use, and code execution.
• Build the supporting backend and data infrastructure.
• Turn ambiguous problems into reliable production systems.
• Help shape the architecture, product, and engineering culture.

Skills

Python engineering

Systems thinking

Research engineering

Backend development

Ambiguity handling

Auditable workflows

Observability

Data infrastructure

Job description

Founding Software Engineer

$200,000–$250,000 with equity

The Opportunity

Join a very early-stage applied-AI company building an AI research analyst—and, ultimately, an AI-native investor for financial markets.

The platform turns high-level investment questions into repeatable workflows: decomposing them into tasks, writing and executing auditable data-science code, evaluating results, and presenting findings investors can inspect and reuse.

The central challenge is building a system that becomes more intelligent, reliable, and useful over time.

The Role

As a Founding Software Engineer, you will work across the Python backend, agent orchestration, evaluation, traceability, data infrastructure, code execution, and output quality.

This is a hands-on role for a high-intelligence, high-agency Python generalist—not a conventional backend position with narrow boundaries. You will identify where the system fails and improve it end to end.

What You’ll Do

• Build a production-grade Python platform for AI-driven investment research
• Design agents that break complex questions into effective research tasks
• Develop systems for generating and safely executing auditable data-science code
• Evaluate reasoning quality, reliability, and usefulness
• Make the system’s conclusions and processes traceable
• Diagnose failures across decomposition, reasoning, tool use, and code execution
• Build the supporting backend and data infrastructure
• Turn ambiguous problems into reliable production systems
• Help shape the architecture, product, and engineering culture

What We’re Looking For

• Exceptional Python engineering ability
• High intellectual horsepower, agency, and learning speed
• Experience building substantial applied-AI, research-engineering, or backend systems
• Evidence of taking ambiguous projects from concept to production
• Strong judgment across software architecture, data systems, and product quality
• Comfort investigating complex failures rather than treating AI behavior as a black box
• A bias toward building, measuring, and iterating
• Interest in AI systems, financial research, or machine-assisted decision-making

Relevant experience:

• LLM agents, orchestration frameworks, or tool-using systems
• Model evaluation and quality-measurement infrastructure
• Secure or sandboxed code execution
• Data-science or quantitative-research workflows
• Financial data platforms
• Observability, provenance, or auditability

Why Join?

Join early enough to shape both the intelligence system and the company.

• You will have broad ownership, direct founder access, and the opportunity to solve difficult problems at the intersection of applied AI, data science, and financial markets.