Founding Engineer Jobs in San Francisco
San Francisco is where the founding-engineer playbook was written and it's still where the largest concentration of these roles posts. Most are seed to Series A, with 1–10 person teams, a working product, and a runway clock. SF founding engineer comp commonly clears $180k–$220k base + 0.5%–2% equity; the highest grants land at pre-seed companies that can't pay cash. Office attendance is nearly always required. These are the companies most likely to insist on 5 days in person.
6 active median salary $275k
| 1. | Founding Engineer (Lance (YC W26)) San Francisco, California, United States | $160,000 – $300,000/yr | on-site | full-time | entry | python, javascript, software development | 5mo ago |
| 2. | Founding Engineer ($170K - $250K + 0.5% - 1.5% Equity) at Healthcare AI startup backed by Scale AI Angels (CoffeeSpace) San Francisco, California, United States | $170,000 – $250,000/yr | on-site | full-time | senior | python, typescript, cloud platforms | 5mo ago |
| 3. | Founding Engineer & CTO (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States | on-site | full-time | executive | python, typescript, go | 5mo ago |
| 4. | Founding ML Engineer (TrueMile.AI) San Francisco, California, United States | hybrid | full-time | lead | machine learning, supervised learning, reinforcement learning | 6mo ago |
| 5. | Software Engineer - AI (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States | on-site | full-time | senior | python, typescript, go | 5mo ago |
| 6. | DevSecOps Engineer - AI (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States | on-site | full-time | senior | devsecops, ai security, llm security | 5mo ago |
Frequently asked questions
- What does a founding engineer in san francisco earn?
- SF compensation runs at the top end of the band. Founding engineer offers commonly clear $200k base + 0.5–2% equity at seed-to-Series-A. The typical band for a founding engineer runs $130k–$220k base + 0.5%–2% equity.
- Are founding engineer jobs in san francisco remote-friendly?
- 0 of the current 6 listings (0%) allow remote work; the rest are on-site or hybrid in San Francisco.
- What companies hire founding engineer jobs in san francisco?
- Jobs Base aggregates listings across YC-backed startups, growth-stage companies, and selected larger companies hiring with builder-role characteristics.
- What's the difference between a founding engineer and a regular founding engineer?
- Jobs Base only lists builder roles. Positions where one person owns the product end-to-end. We filter out ticket-driven, narrowly-scoped roles even when the title matches. About 9% of listings scraped match this definition.