Init Intelligence — Senior/Staff Founding Full-Stack Engineer, Agent Systems

davidjoseph-co; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meals in office

Health insurance

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

Init Intelligence is seeking a senior backend-heavy engineer to own the product and system end-to-end in a San Francisco, CA office. You will architect and build the workflow engine, identity and authorization layers, and a policy engine for secure, multi-tenant AI tooling used in production IT environments.

The role emphasizes end-to-end ownership, secure storage of keys and tokens, and a hands-on approach to building durable, auditable systems with strong emphasis on security and reliability.

Qualifications

• Senior/Staff backend + systems heavy role
• Owns product and system end-to-end
• Experience with IAM/authz, workflow, multi-tenant SaaS
• Prioritizes security, threat modeling, and failure modes

Responsibilities

• Build the workflow engine for long-running human + agent work
• Design identity and authorization for humans, services, and agents
• Develop a versioned policy engine for actions on resources
• Own secure storage and rotation of keys and credentials
• Ship interfaces to author, approve, inspect, and operate production systems

Skills

Backend systems

IAM / authz

Multi-tenant SaaS

Security-focused design

Job description

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CACompensation: $200,000–$300,000 + 1%–2% equityHiring count: 1Visa sponsorship: Yes — H-1B, O-1, OPTReports to: Founders (Isaiah, co-founder, plus a second co-founder)

About Init Intelligence

Init is building AI coworkers for IT teams: a security-focused product where an agent registers as a governed identity in a customer’s directory, requests scoped access per task, escalates for human approval, and drives systems it was never given an API for. The company raised a $6M seed round (no product or customers at the time), backed by Max Altman and Ben Braverman (CRO of Flexport, which sold for $2B), plus a bench of operator angels across IT and security. Init has several design partners today and a founding team of three.

Founded: 2026 | Team size: 1–10 | Total funding: $6M seedIndustry: AI Tools — IT & security automationWebsite: init.incOffice: San Francisco, CA

Why Candidates Should Join

• True founding scope: Early engineer owning the product and system end-to-end — workflow engine, identity/authz, policy engine, credential handling, and agent sandboxes.
• Serious backing, real traction: $6M seed behind Max Altman and Flexport's ex-CRO, already live with several design partners as a team of three.
• Frontier systems + security work: Governed agent identity, delegated authorization, and secure credential handling for autonomous agents acting in production IT environments.

Intake Call Summary

• An intake video is posted on the role page, but no transcript is available to parse — no intake summary captured. Ask Contrario for the intake notes or key points if you want this populated.

The Role

A backend- and systems-heavy founding engineering role where "full-stack" means owning the product and system end-to-end.

What You'll Be Doing

• Build the workflow engine for long-running human + agent work: durable state, retries, idempotency, approvals, replay, compensation, auditability
• Design identity and authorization for humans, services, and agents: principals, delegation, scoped sessions, tenant isolation, traceable authority
• Build a versioned policy engine (who/what can do which action on which resource, under what context)
• Own secure storage and use of customer keys, OAuth tokens, and admin credentials: isolation, rotation, ephemer injection, revocation, blast-radius containment
• Own the probabilistic-to-deterministic execution boundary: validation, evals, release gates
• Build isolated virtual environments and dev boxes for agents: reproducible state, observability, resource controls, safe teardown
• Ship the interfaces and APIs to author, approve, inspect, debug, and operate these systems in production

Tech stack: Not specified on the role page.

Requirements

• Senior/Staff, backend + systems heavy
• Owns product + system end to end
• IAM/authz, workflow, multi-tenant SaaS
• Invariants, threat models, failure modes
• Fast from ambiguity, no correctness trade-offs
• SF, Mon-Fri in person

Green Flags

• Exceptional signal of excellence in some facet: led an important team at a high-growth company, top competition results (ICPC, IOI), or elite achievement in a sport, game, or craft
• Top-tier schooling (Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, Northeastern, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UW, Waterloo, Oxford) for a CS/eng degree, OR genuinely exceptional experience in lieu of it
• Worked at a great company on a relevant, high-caliber team (team matters, not ads)
• Big-tech backgrounds welcome for the scalability/security depth they bring
• High agency: former founders, big scope, real ambiguity; early engineers who owned architecture, production, and customer-facing product

Red Flags

• Career breaks / the "eat-pray" archetype (a year off, or three short jobs in a year)
• Currently "looking for work" / open-to-work with a thin, fluff-heavy profile
• A weak foreign university plus a US master's used to launder credentials (unless a top institution like an IIT)
• Only implemented scoped features, built demos without production rigor, or depends on separate teams for architecture, security, infrastructure, or product decisions

Role Details

• Salary — $200,000–$300,000
• Equity — 1%–2%
• Experience — 4+ years
• On-site policy — In person in SF, Monday–Friday, at startup intensity
• Visa sponsorship — H-1B, O-1, OPT
• Employment type — Full-time
• Location — San Francisco, CA
• Benefits — Meals in office, health insurance, unlimited PTO

Screening Questions

• None provided on the role page. Ask Contrario whether the client has specific screen questions before scheduling calls.

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval.Stage 2 — Culture Screen — With Isaiah (co-founder).Stage 3 — Culture Screen — With the other co-founder.Stage 4 — Technical Interview (~1 hour) — Systems-design focused.Stage 5 — One-Day On-SiteStage 6 — Offer ExtendedStage 7 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

• Not provided on the role page.

Ideal Candidate Profiles

For reference only — do not source these specific profiles. Contrario labels this section "DO NOT CONTACT."

• Henry Baer — LinkedIn (URL not exposed in the page markup)
• Nicolas Lacasse — LinkedIn (URL not exposed in the page markup)
• Andrew Gaul — personal site (URL not exposed in the page markup)