What does a founding engineer in the united states earn?

US base salaries skew highest globally for builder roles, with most listings concentrated in SF, NYC, Austin, Seattle, and remote-US. The typical band for a founding engineer runs $130k–$220k base + 0.5%–2% equity.

Are founding engineer jobs in the united states remote-friendly?

16 of the current 111 listings (14%) allow remote work; the rest are on-site or hybrid in United States.

What companies hire founding engineer jobs in the united states?

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.

Founding Engineer Jobs in the United States

Founding engineer hiring in the US is concentrated in three places: the Bay Area (still), New York (rising), and remote-US (everyone). Pay ranges are wide: $130k base in a pre-seed all-equity company up to $250k+ at a well-funded Series A. The constant: you're the first or second engineer, you make foundational technical decisions, and there's no PM between you and the customer. Visa sponsorship varies by company stage; pre-seed startups often can't, Series A and later usually can.

111 active 14% remote median salary $223k

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 \| 2mo 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 \| 2mo ago
3.	Founding Engineer & CTO (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| python, typescript, go \| 2mo ago
4.	Founding Engineer & CTO (WealthyMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| python, typescript, go \| 2mo ago
5.	Founding Engineer, Apps (Starch) Brooklyn, New York, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| typescript, react, postgres \| 2mo ago
6.	Founding Engineer ($200K - $250K + Up to 1% Equity) at YC-backed AI GTM startup (CoffeeSpace) San Francisco, California, United States \| $200,000 – $250,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| typescript, react, next.js \| 3mo ago
7.	Founding Engineer (ryw) Houston, Texas, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| api design, async patterns, data modeling \| 3mo ago
8.	Founding Engineer (Recruiting from Scratch) New York, New York, United States \| $170,000 – $185,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| python, django, typescript \| 3mo ago
9.	Founding Engineer (Arcadia) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| react, typescript, python \| 3mo ago
10.	Founding Engineer (Neighborbrite) United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| generative vision models, llm, next.js \| 3mo ago
11.	Founding Engineer \| Backend Infrastructure / AI Agents \| TypeScript \| Python \| Must have startup experience (Optimal) New York, New York, United States \| $150,000 – $225,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| backend infrastructure, sre, devops \| 3mo ago
12.	Founding Engineer (Vye Health) United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| react, postgresql, aws \| 3mo ago
13.	Founding Engineer (Albert Bow) California, United States \| Up to $300,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| python, distributed systems, llm \| 3mo ago
14.	Founding Engineer (Nohi) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| typescript, react, next.js \| 3mo ago
15.	Founding Engineer - Robotics Data Infrastructure (Neural Motion) California, United States \| $150,000 – $220,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| python, go, distributed systems \| 3mo ago
16.	Founding Engineer (Recruiting from Scratch) United States \| $150,000 – $200,000/yr \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| go, typescript, next.js \| 3mo ago
17.	Founding Engineer (Back-end) (Stealth Startup) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| backend engineering, apis, databases \| 3mo ago
18.	Founding Engineer - Staff Distributed Systems (Birdai Labs, Inc) United States \| remote \| full-time \| senior \| rust, c++, distributed systems \| 3mo ago
19.	Founding Engineer (AI startup-Remote) (CyberCoders) Seattle, Washington, United States \| $170,000 – $200,000/yr \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| python, machine learning, aws \| 3mo ago
20.	Founding Engineer (Reval) New York, New York, United States \| $180,000 – $300,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| typescript, react, postgres \| 3mo ago
21.	Founding Engineer (Python, Typescript, React) (Trinity Consulting Group) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $180,000/yr \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| python, typescript, react \| 3mo ago
22.	Founding Engineer (CoinBanker) United States \| remote \| part-time \| lead \| react native, react, node.js \| 3mo ago
23.	Founding Engineer (SF, On-site) (Caddie AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $180,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| python, typescript, react \| 3mo ago
24.	Founding AI Engineer (Part Time) - Prompt Engineering & LLM Applications (Y22 AI) United States \| remote \| full-time \| entry \| prompt engineering, llm applications, python \| 2mo ago
25.	Founding ML Engineer (TrueMile.AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| machine learning, supervised learning, reinforcement learning \| 2mo ago
26.	Founding AI Engineer (LinkMD AI) United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| python, llm, ai \| 2mo ago
27.	Founding AI Engineer (Kaelux) United States \| From $160,000/yr \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| ai engineering, langgraph, n8n \| 2mo ago
28.	Founding AI Engineer (Raya Health) San Francisco, California, United States \| $100,000 – $120,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| openai models, anthropic models, fine-tuning \| 2mo ago
29.	Founding AI Engineer (Farsyt) Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| python, apis, databases \| 2mo ago
30.	Founding AI Engineer (Edelman Legal Consulting PLLC) New York, New York, United States \| hybrid \| contract \| lead \| ai, rag, llm \| 3mo ago
31.	Founding AI Engineer (Healthcare) (ReClym Health) United States+1 \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| fastapi, react, next.js \| 3mo ago
32.	Founding ML Engineer – Search & Agents (Greylock Partners) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| software engineering, search systems, retrieval \| 3mo ago
33.	Founding AI Engineer (RDE Advisors, Inc.) New York, New York, United States \| $65,000 – $80,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| next.js 14, typescript, tailwind css \| 3mo ago
34.	Founding ML Engineer / Series A / NYC / $250k + Founding Equity (Open Talent) New York, New York, United States \| $250,000 – $500,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| python, pytorch, llms \| 3mo ago
35.	Founding CTO Engineer (iOS-First, Mobile Builder) (Solve) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| ios, swift, mobile development \| 3mo ago
36.	AI Founding Engineer (Supply Veins (Techstars '24)) California, United States+1 \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| neural networks, pattern recognition, natural language processing \| 2mo ago
37.	Founding AI/ML Engineer (Prismera) New York, New York, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| llm orchestration, retrieval infrastructure, document understanding \| 2mo ago
38.	Founding AI/ML Engineer / Startup / $500k+ / NYC (Open Talent) New York, United States \| $500,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| llms, rag, agentic systems \| 3mo ago
39.	Founding AI GTM Engineer (Grasply™) United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| python, api integration, rest api \| 3mo ago
40.	Founding DevOps Engineer (Equity-Based – Pre-Funding Startup) (Orchestrator Technology Inc) Florida, United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| cloud infrastructure, deployment pipelines, production systems \| 3mo ago
41.	Founding Senior Engineer (Recruiting from Scratch) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $300,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| python, typescript, backend \| 3mo ago
42.	Founding Backend Engineer (Wingback Security) San Francisco Bay Area, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| python, go, typescript \| 2mo ago
43.	Founding Product Engineer (Phaselaw) New York City, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| next.js, react, tailwind \| 3mo ago
44.	Founding Backend Engineer (Phaselaw) New York City, New York, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| mid \| python, postgres, elasticsearch \| 3mo ago
45.	Founding Head of Engineering (kadence) San Francisco, California, United States+1 \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| full-stack development, backend development, frontend development \| 3mo ago
46.	Founding Product Engineer (Full Stack) (Portal (SPC F25)) California, United States \| $110,000 – $180,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| backend, distributed systems, infrastructure \| 3mo ago
47.	Founding Product Engineer (Mobile-First, React Native / Expo) — Dallas (Hybrid / Remote) (Frienzy Inc.) Dallas, Texas, United States \| hybrid \| contract \| lead \| react native, expo, react \| 3mo ago
48.	Founding AI / ML Engineer (Lume Security) Atlanta, Georgia, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| python, typescript, machine learning \| 3mo ago
49.	Founding Frontend Engineer (ASTA Health Tech) United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| javascript, typescript, react \| 3mo ago
50.	Founding Software Engineer - Equity Only Role (SideKix HQ Inc.) United States \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| react, node.js, firebase \| 3mo ago

view all 111 results

Frequently asked questions

What does a founding engineer in the united states earn?: US base salaries skew highest globally for builder roles, with most listings concentrated in SF, NYC, Austin, Seattle, and remote-US. The typical band for a founding engineer runs $130k–$220k base + 0.5%–2% equity.
Are founding engineer jobs in the united states remote-friendly?: 16 of the current 111 listings (14%) allow remote work; the rest are on-site or hybrid in United States.
What companies hire founding engineer jobs in the united states?: 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.