Founding Staff Engineer — AI-First Platform Architect

Tightknit; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary & equity

Unlimited PTO

Parental leave

Equipment budget

Education budget

Health insurance

Co-working space

US health coverage

Job summary

Tightknit is hiring its first Founding Engineer to help build a resilient, trustworthy platform that embeds into Slack and powers communities for teams like Stripe and Mixpanel. You will own architecture, drive product direction, and collaborate directly with customers while shaping how engineering operates in a fast-growing startup.

This staff-level role demands 5+ years of full-stack experience, strong backend fundamentals, and comfort operating with founders in an early-stage company.

Qualifications

• Must have strong backend fundamentals and production systems design experience.
• Experience in early-stage startups or with founders is preferred.
• Delivery of enterprise products is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Define architecture, not just implement it.
• Own systems end-to-end from design to monitoring and iteration.
• Interact directly with customers to gather feedback.
• Build internal AI workflows to accelerate velocity.
• Wear multiple hats and operate with high accountability.

Skills

Full-stack engineer

Customer interaction

Architecture design

DevOps

AI workflows

Leadership

Tools

Slack Platform

OpenAPI

PostgreSQL

Drizzle

Supabase

Github

Sentry

Job description

Tightknit is hiring its first Founding Engineer to help build a resilient, trustworthy platform that embeds into Slack and powers communities for teams like Stripe and Mixpanel. You will own architecture, drive product direction, and collaborate directly with customers while shaping how engineering operates in a fast-growing startup.

This staff-level role demands 5+ years of full-stack experience, strong backend fundamentals, and comfort operating with founders in an early-stage company.