Founding Software Engineer - Backend

present of AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Hypercubic is seeking a senior backend engineer in San Francisco to turn vague problems into robust systems. You will work on AI-driven features end to end, setting early standards for testing and reliability, and shaping architecture with the CTO.

This is a founding backbone role with significant impact on product direction. Ideal candidates have deep engineering fundamentals and comfort with uncertainty, plus experience building complex agentic products or infrastructure in production.

Qualifications

• Founding backend role requiring ability to turn vague problems into working systems.
• Experience building AI-driven features end-to-end in production environments.
• Strong architecture and testing mindset, with reliability as a priority.

Responsibilities

• Build AI-driven features end to end for enterprise-scale systems.
• Set early standards for testing and reliability across the stack.
• Shape architecture in collaboration with the CTO.

Skills

Backend dev

Systems design

Prototype to prod

Testing standards

Agentic AI

Tools

COBOL

Job description

Engineering · San Francisco · FullTime · Senior level

This is a founding backend role for someone who can take vague problems and turn them into working systems, moving between quick prototypes and solid production code. The work centers on building AI driven features end to end, setting early standards for testing and reliability, and shaping architecture alongside the CTO. A strong candidate brings deep engineering fundamentals, comfort with uncertainty, and real experience building complex agentic products or infrastructure.

How it fits the AI era

The role sits directly on AI work, since the product uses agents to read and rework large legacy codebases. Much of the building is about connecting models to real workflows and making them dependable at enterprise scale, which still needs human judgment on design, testing, and tradeoffs. The parts that stay human are the systems thinking, the quality bar, and deciding what to build before how.

How it builds AI experience

Working here means hands on practice with agentic systems applied to mainframe and COBOL code, a narrow and valuable area. A candidate can build relevant proof by shipping agent or autonomous systems in production and by learning program analysis basics. Exposure to compilers or legacy systems would strengthen the fit for this company's focus.

Worth showing

• Agentic systems in production
• Backend architecture ownership
• Rapid prototyping to production
• Testing and reliability standards
• Program analysis or compilers

This is our own read, written from the employer's posting and the company's Spotlight. The employer's posting is the source of truth for the role.

About Hypercubic

Per the company, Hypercubic provides an agentic AI platform that helps enterprises and governments understand, operate, and modernize mainframe and COBOL systems.