Member of Technical Staff (Founding Engineer)

Title of Role: Founding Engineer (Full Stack)
Location: New York City (Hybrid)
Company Stage of Funding: Seed (Backed by top-tier investors and prominent angels)
Office Type: Hybrid (3 days/week in-office near Grand Central Station)
Salary: $120,000 – $200,000 Equity (0.3%–2%)

Company Description

Our client is an AI-native startup on a mission to revolutionize how companies understand their users. They're building an AI-powered qualitative researcher that simulates and accelerates customer insights — compressing months of research into hours. The team is backed by $2.6M in funding from top VCs and successful founders (e.g., Lyft, Braze, Harvey AI) and is already generating revenue with major enterprise customers.

As a founding engineer, you’ll be joining a high-caliber founding team (ex-Lyft, Ro) at the very start of a market-disruptive journey. The market research industry — a $100B space — is overdue for reinvention, and this team is uniquely positioned to lead the charge.

What You Will Do

• Build full-stack features across the platform (Python backend modern React/Next.js frontend)

• Collaborate with the founders on product direction and technical architecture

• Work with LLMs, voice agents, and synthetic user simulation at the core of the product

• Integrate AI models and systems with third-party tools like Cursor, Windsurf, and ChatGPT

• Design and maintain reliable, scalable systems deployed in AWS (ECS, Lambda, etc.)

• Help define company engineering culture and shape the early technical team

• Own major initiatives end-to-end, from idea to production

Ideal Candidate Background

• 3–7 years of full-stack engineering experience, ideally in startup or high-growth environments

• Proven track record of shipping features end-to-end in production

• Strong backend skills (Python, PostgreSQL, AWS architecture)

• Frontend proficiency in TypeScript, React, Next.js, and Tailwind CSS

• Experience or interest in AI tools such as LLMs, STT, and TTS systems

• Clear communicator who can explain technical decisions and collaborate across functions

• Strong sense of ownership and bias toward action

Preferred

• Experience working with or building voice-based agents

• Prior work with LLMs or generative AI tools (even side projects are valued)

• Deep AWS experience (Cognito, VPCs, ECS/ECR, etc.)

• Past experience founding or being an early employee at a startup

• Additional ML/AI experience is a plus

Compensation and Benefits

• Salary: $120,000 – $200,000 depending on experience

• Equity: 0.3% – 2% with significant upside as an early team member

• Visa Sponsorship: Available for the right candidate (must be a short-duration process)

• PTO Policy: Unlimited PTO with a minimum of 10 days required

• Work Hours: Reasonable hours (10am–6pm); flexible for urgent deadlines

• Work Setup: Hybrid – 3 days/week in a beautiful office near Grand Central

• Culture: Low-ego, collaborative environment with a strong “no-asshole” policy

This is a ground-floor opportunity to redefine how businesses connect with their users — blending AI, product thinking, and high-velocity execution. You’ll shape not just the product but the company’s future, with a clear path to technical leadership.