Founding Software Engineer

Thomas Talent Network; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential client in San Francisco, CA is hiring a founding engineer for a seed-stage startup building an in-cockpit AI debrief platform. You will own backend and data infrastructure, integrate flight data, and partner with pilots and military operators to ship production code.

You will define architecture, scale systems, and lay the groundwork for a growing technical team, reporting to CTO and guiding a sub-ten-person group.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience.
• FAA pilot certificate at private pilot level or higher.
• In-person role in San Francisco, CA; no visa sponsorship.
• Ability to own end-to-end systems and architecture decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own backend and data infrastructure powering the AI debrief platform.
• Integrate flight dynamics, telemetry, and cockpit audio into training systems.
• Make architecture calls to scale the platform.
• Collaborate with pilots, instructors, and military operators.
• Ship production code across the full stack and iterate on feedback.
• Lay groundwork for a future technical team and culture.

Skills

Backend engineering

Data pipelines

System architecture

Cloud infrastructure

Full-stack development

Job description

Confidential client — a Seed-stage startup (1-10 employees) whose platform captures everything a pilot sees and hears during a flight and turns it into automated debrief intelligence, giving flight instructors and squadron commanders sortie-level awareness that has never existed before.

The platform is already live at multiple flight academies and with a U.S. military customer. The company's in-cockpit hardware device streams audio and telemetry data to the cloud in real time, where AI analytics generate the debrief. Full-Time, In-person, San Francisco, CA. Experience: 5+ years. Salary: $200,000-$250,000/yr. Visa sponsorship: None available.

About the Role: This is a founding engineering seat at a company where your code ships to real pilots and military operators. You will own entire systems end to end, from the backend and data pipelines that power the AI platform to the interfaces instructors and commanders depend on daily, working directly with the CTO and reporting into the technical leadership of a sub-ten-person team.

The role demands someone who can hold both a software engineering mindset and a pilot's contextual understanding of what a bug or missed data frame actually costs in a cockpit. This is not a defined-scope job: you will make architecture calls, ship to production, and grow a team beneath you as the company scales.

What You'll Own:

• Build and scale the backend and data infrastructure that powers the AI debrief platform, from ingestion of multimodal flight audio and telemetry through to streamed, structured output
• Integrate flight dynamics, telemetry, and cockpit audio into intelligent debrief and training systems used by flight schools and the U.S. Air Force
• Make the architecture calls that define how the company scales, including framework selection, infrastructure decisions, and technical bets that will persist as the company grows
• Work directly with pilots, instructors, and military operators to build tools that hold up in the cockpit and the classroom, and translate operator feedback into engineering decisions
• Ship production code across the full stack and iterate on real operator feedback, not hypotheticals
• Lay the groundwork for a technical team you will eventually lead, setting engineering culture, code standards, and hiring bar from the founding stage

Must-Have:

FAA pilot certificate at private pilot level or higher (up to CFII or ATP) — pilot certification is non-negotiable for this role.

Company stage: Seed. Work type: In-person (San Francisco, CA). No visa sponsorship available.