What does a startup 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 startup engineer runs $120k–$200k base + early-stage equity.

Are startup engineer jobs in san francisco remote-friendly?

3 of the current 86 listings (3%) allow remote work; the rest are on-site or hybrid in San Francisco.

What companies hire startup 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 startup engineer and a regular startup 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.

Startup Engineer Jobs in San Francisco

SF startup engineer roles concentrate at pre-seed through Series A companies. The segment where the title is most accurate. Comp at SF builder-role startup engineer roles commonly runs $150k–$200k base + 0.5–1.5% equity at seed stage. Expect 4–5 days in-office. The work is the broadest in the entire market: writing code, talking to customers, running events, debugging the deploy, occasionally writing marketing copy.

86 active 3% remote median salary $210k

1.	Founding Engineer (Aurorin CAD) San Francisco, California, United States \| $100,000 – $150,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| systems programming, native applications, swift \| 1mo ago
2.	Product Engineer (Imbue) San Francisco, California, United States \| $170,000 – $350,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| react, typescript, python \| 1mo ago
3.	Software Engineer (SF) (Fractional AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| $160,000 – $220,000/yr \| remote \| full-time \| senior \| software engineering, ai systems, system design \| 1mo ago
4.	Product Engineer (Y Combinator) San Francisco, California, United States \| $185,000 – $485,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| rails, react, full-stack \| 4w ago
5.	Harness Engineer (Substrate) San Francisco, California, United States \| $140,000 – $200,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| senior \| llm, machine learning, ai \| 1mo ago
6.	Founding Engineer (Chasi) San Francisco, California, United States \| $120,000 – $170,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| typescript, react, next.js \| 1mo ago
7.	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 \| 1mo ago
8.	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 \| 1mo ago
9.	Founding Engineer (Arcadia) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| react, typescript, python \| 1mo ago
10.	Engineering, GTM (AirOps) San Francisco, United States+2 \| hybrid \| full-time \| mid \| llm, rag, python \| 3w ago
11.	Founding Engineer (Back-end) (Stealth Startup) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| backend engineering, apis, databases \| 1mo ago
12.	Founding Full-Stack Engineer (Empathy Talent) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $230,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| senior \| react, typescript, node.js \| 1mo ago
13.	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 \| 2mo ago
14.	Software Engineer ($180K - $220K + Equity) at YC-backed AI Data Infrastructure Startup (CoffeeSpace) San Francisco, California, United States \| $180,000 – $220,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| next.js, react, python \| 1mo ago
15.	Software Engineer (Conduit) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $200,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| senior \| python, django, svelte \| 1mo ago
16.	Founding Engineer & CTO (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| python, typescript, go \| 1mo ago
17.	Frontend Engineer (React \| TypeScript) (Epic Placements) San Francisco, California, United States \| $200,000 – $270,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| react, typescript, next.js \| 1mo ago
18.	Software Engineer, AI (Ruli) San Francisco, California, United States \| $110,000 – $200,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| python, typescript, serverless \| 1mo ago
19.	Senior Software Engineer ($250K - $300K + Equity) at YC-backed AI Data Infrastructure Startup (CoffeeSpace) San Francisco, California, United States \| $250,000 – $300,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| next.js, react, node.js \| 1mo ago
20.	Fullstack Engineer ($185K - $250K + 0.1% - 0.3% Equity) at Founders Fund-backed AI Enterprise Startup (CoffeeSpace) San Francisco, California, United States \| $185,000 – $250,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| mid \| python, react, apis \| 1mo ago
21.	Founding Engineer & CTO (WealthyMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| python, typescript, go \| 1mo ago
22.	Founding Head of Engineering (kadence) San Francisco, California, United States+1 \| remote \| full-time \| lead \| full-stack development, backend development, frontend development \| 1mo ago
23.	Founding Engineer (Nohi) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| typescript, react, next.js \| 1mo ago
24.	Founding Product Engineer (Sparkles) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $200,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| typescript, react, ai tools \| 1mo ago
25.	Software Engineer (ABC People) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| react, python, node.js \| 1mo ago
26.	Software Engineer, Growth (Slash) San Francisco, California, United States \| $350,000 – $550,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| mid \| software engineering, fintech, product development \| 1mo ago
27.	Founding Engineer (Arcadia) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| react, python, aws \| 1mo ago
28.	Founding Lead AI Engineer (Harnham) San Francisco, California, United States \| $250,000 – $300,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| llm, langchain, onnx \| 3w ago
29.	Founding GTM Engineer (Revyl) San Francisco, California, United States \| $100,000 – $200,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| onboarding flows, growth experiments, internal tools \| 1mo ago
30.	Full-Stack Engineer (Actively AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| python, fastapi, react \| 1mo ago
31.	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 \| 1mo ago
32.	Senior Full Stack Engineer (Strada) San Francisco, California, United States \| $160,000 – $230,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| typescript, react, node.js \| 1mo ago
33.	Artificial Intelligence Engineer (Intellect Group) San Francisco, California, United States \| $200,000 – $225,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| python, go, llms \| 4w ago
34.	Product Engineer (Full Stack) (TrueClaim) San Francisco, California, United States \| $140,000 – $180,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| python, next.js, typescript \| 1mo ago
35.	Agent Engineer (Arcade) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| python, typescript, llms \| 3w ago
36.	Software Engineer (ShiftOS) San Francisco, California, United States \| $120,000 – $165,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| react, next.js, typescript \| 1mo ago
37.	Senior Software Engineer (AI Agents) (Arcadia) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| senior \| react, typescript, go \| 1mo ago
38.	Founding Engineer (Lance (YC W26)) San Francisco, California, United States \| $160,000 – $300,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| python, javascript, software development \| 4w ago
39.	Full-Stack Engineer (Front-End Spike) (hud) San Francisco, California, United States \| $140,000 – $250,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| mid \| frontend, backend, api \| 1mo ago
40.	Software Engineer - Product (Mid to Senior) (Julius) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $200,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| mid \| react, next.js, tailwind css \| 1mo ago
41.	Software Engineer - Product (New Grad) (Julius) San Francisco, California, United States \| $130,000 – $150,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| react, next.js, tailwind css \| 1mo ago
42.	Full Stack Software Engineer (Gumloop) San Francisco, California, United States+1 \| $120,000 – $220,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| senior \| python, typescript, react \| 1mo ago
43.	Software Engineer - Product (Mid to Senior) (Julius) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $200,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| mid \| react, next.js, tailwind css \| 1mo ago
44.	Conductor (Conductor) San Francisco, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| 4w ago
45.	Growth Engineer (AthenaHQ) San Francisco, California, United States \| $110,000 – $165,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| claude code, ai tools, analytics \| 1mo ago
46.	Founding Engineer (Avent) San Francisco, California, United States \| $120,000 – $150,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| next.js, typescript, python \| 1mo ago
47.	Founding Backend Engineer (Plaud) San Francisco, California, United States \| $160,000 – $190,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| python, fastapi, go \| 1mo ago
48.	Founding CTO / Founding Engineer (iOS-First, 0→1 Builder) (Solve) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| ios, swift, backend systems \| 1mo ago
49.	Founding Engineer (Effective AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| python, typescript, go \| 1mo ago
50.	Founding CTO Engineer (iOS-First, Mobile Builder) (Solve) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| ios, swift, mobile development \| 1mo ago

view all 86 results

Frequently asked questions

What does a startup 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 startup engineer runs $120k–$200k base + early-stage equity.
Are startup engineer jobs in san francisco remote-friendly?: 3 of the current 86 listings (3%) allow remote work; the rest are on-site or hybrid in San Francisco.
What companies hire startup 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 startup engineer and a regular startup 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.