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?

1 of the current 24 listings (4%) 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.

24 active 4% remote median salary $250k

1.	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 \| 3mo ago
2.	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 \| 4mo ago
3.	Founding Engineer (Back-end) (Stealth Startup) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| backend engineering, apis, databases \| 4mo ago
4.	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 \| 4mo ago
5.	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 \| 4mo ago
6.	Founding Engineer & CTO (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| python, typescript, go \| 3mo ago
7.	Software Engineer, AI (Ruli) San Francisco, California, United States \| $110,000 – $200,000/yr \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| python, typescript, serverless \| 3mo ago
8.	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 \| 4mo ago
9.	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 \| 4mo ago
10.	Founding Engineer & CTO (WealthyMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| python, typescript, go \| 3mo ago
11.	Founding Engineer (Nohi) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| typescript, react, next.js \| 4mo ago
12.	Full-Stack Engineer (Actively AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| python, fastapi, react \| 4mo ago
13.	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 \| 4mo ago
14.	Software Engineer (ShiftOS) San Francisco, California, United States \| $120,000 – $165,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| react, next.js, typescript \| 4mo ago
15.	Founding Engineer (Lance (YC W26)) San Francisco, California, United States \| $160,000 – $300,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| entry \| python, javascript, software development \| 3mo ago
16.	Founding CTO / Founding Engineer (iOS-First, 0→1 Builder) (Solve) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| lead \| ios, swift, backend systems \| 4mo ago
17.	Founding CTO Engineer (iOS-First, Mobile Builder) (Solve) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| ios, swift, mobile development \| 4mo ago
18.	Software Engineer (Founding) (Moe) San Francisco, California, United States \| hybrid \| full-time \| entry \| react native, typescript, aws lambda \| 4mo ago
19.	Head of Engineering (Vidably) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| executive \| typescript, ai-native tooling, ai coding tools \| 4mo ago
20.	Founding Senior Engineer (Recruiting from Scratch) San Francisco, California, United States \| $150,000 – $300,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| python, typescript, backend \| 4mo ago
21.	Staff Engineer (Varick Agents) San Francisco, California, United States \| $220,000 – $280,000/yr \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| systems design, ai/ml systems, inference \| 4mo ago
22.	Founding Software Engineer (MIRA) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| lead \| llm, fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation (rag) \| 4mo ago
23.	Applied AI Engineer (Artisan) San Francisco, United States+2 \| on-site \| full-time \| mid \| ai, llm, prompt engineering \| 4mo ago
24.	Software Engineer - AI (NovusMinds AI) San Francisco, California, United States \| on-site \| full-time \| senior \| python, typescript, go \| 3mo ago

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?: 1 of the current 24 listings (4%) 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.