Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a specialized talent firm dedicated to helping companies build exceptional teams. We partner closely with our clients to deeply understand their needs, then connect them with top-tier candidates who are not only highly skilled but also the right fit for the company’s culture and vision. Our mission is simple: place the best people in the right roles to drive long-term success for both clients and candidates.

https://www.recruitingfromscratch.com/

Title of Role: Founding Senior Engineer

Location: San Francisco, California

Company Stage of Funding: Seed-Stage AI Startup (Series A anticipated)

Office Type: Onsite – 5 Days a Week

Salary: $150,000 – $300,000 Base + Equity

Company Description

Our client is an early-stage applied AI company building technology that enables organizations to deploy highly capable AI employees within real-world digital environments. Their platform allows AI agents to operate using common workplace tools—such as browsers, messaging platforms, and productivity software—to support operational and knowledge-work tasks across industries.

Since launching, the company has experienced strong organic demand from both enterprise and high-growth technology customers. The team is small, highly technical, and focused on building production-ready AI systems that can scale across a wide variety of real business workflows.

Backed by leading venture investors and experienced founders from top universities and technology companies, the organization is entering a rapid growth phase and is looking to expand its founding engineering team.

This is a rare opportunity to join an early team building cutting-edge AI infrastructure while helping define the technical and product direction of the company.

What You Will Do

As a Founding Senior Engineer, you will play a key role in shaping the technical foundation of the company and building systems that enable AI agents to operate in complex environments.

Responsibilities include:

Design and build scalable backend systems that support AI-driven automation and agent workflows
Develop full-stack features across backend services, infrastructure, and user-facing interfaces
Build and maintain integrations with external tools, APIs, and enterprise systems
Work closely with founders and early customers to design solutions for real-world use cases
Architect reliable infrastructure for deploying AI systems at scale
Contribute to AI product development using modern machine learning and LLM tooling
Help define engineering standards, best practices, and development processes as the team grows
Collaborate across product, engineering, and customer teams to ship features quickly in a fast-moving startup environment
Mentor and support future engineering hires as the team expands

Ideal Candidate Background

The ideal candidate is a highly motivated engineer who enjoys building systems from the ground up and thrives in fast-moving startup environments.

Typical qualifications include:

5+ years of experience as a software engineer with strong backend capabilities
Experience building and owning complex production systems end-to-end
Strong programming experience with Python and TypeScript
Experience working across the full stack, including backend services, APIs, and infrastructure
Familiarity with modern AI or LLM tooling and building AI-powered products
Experience working in high-growth startups or high-performance engineering teams
Strong product instincts and ability to work closely with customers and stakeholders
Ability to operate independently, take ownership, and execute quickly
Strong communication and collaboration skills

Preferred

The following experience would be beneficial but is not required:

Experience working on AI platforms, agent frameworks, or LLM-driven applications
Familiarity with tools such as React, Node.js, Next.js, AWS, LangChain, or HuggingFace
Experience building developer platforms, integrations, or workflow automation systems
Prior startup or founding-team experience
Experience working in high-ambiguity environments with rapid product iteration
Background from high-growth technology companies or venture-backed startups

Compensation and Benefits

Base Salary: $150,000 – $300,000 depending on experience
Equity: Meaningful early-stage equity with significant upside potential
Opportunity to join a founding engineering team and shape the technical direction of the company
Work directly with experienced founders and a highly technical early team
Exposure to cutting-edge AI infrastructure and real-world AI deployments
Collaborative, fast-paced startup environment with significant ownership and autonomy
Office located in San Francisco with an in-person engineering culture

If you're excited about building production-grade AI systems, working closely with founders, and shaping the future of AI-powered work, this opportunity offers a unique chance to make a meaningful impact at an early stage.