Senior Product Engineer

Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a premier talent firm that focuses on placing the best product managers, software, and hardware talent at innovative companies. Our team is 100% remote and we work with teams across the United States to help them hire.

Senior Product Engineer
Location - Palo Alto, CA (Onsite - 5 Days per Week)
Compensation - $180,000 - $250,000 Base + Competitive Equity
Visa - Visa Sponsorship Available
Company Stage - Early-Stage AI Startup
Industry - AI, LegalTech, Enterprise Software, LLM Applications, Workflow Automation

About the Company

The company is building an AI-powered legal technology platform that transforms one of the most complex and high-impact professional workflows by combining experienced domain experts with modern AI systems.

Its platform leverages large language models, AI-assisted workflows, and automation to help legal professionals manage complex case work, streamline document preparation, and improve operational efficiency across high-volume legal processes.

Backed by leading venture investors and led by an experienced founding team, the company is rapidly scaling its engineering organization while maintaining a high engineering bar and AI-native development culture. Engineers own products end-to-end-from backend architecture and APIs to frontend experiences and AI-powered product capabilities.

As a Senior Product Engineer, you'll work directly with the founders and internal domain experts to build AI-powered software that solves meaningful real-world problems while shipping production features at startup speed.

This is a rare opportunity to join an early-stage AI company where every engineer directly shapes product strategy, engineering culture, and customer impact while building software used in high-stakes real-world workflows.

What You'll Do

• Own product features end-to-end across backend services, frontend applications, and AI-powered workflows
• Design and build scalable APIs, backend services, and production application architecture
• Design database schemas and backend systems supporting production applications
• Build AI-powered product features leveraging LLMs and machine learning models
• Develop user-facing experiences using modern frontend technologies
• Partner directly with internal domain experts to understand workflows and rapidly build solutions
• Build production-grade software using AI-assisted development tools
• Collaborate closely with founders to shape product direction and engineering priorities
• Prototype new product capabilities rapidly and iterate based on user feedback
• Design scalable backend infrastructure supporting AI-powered workflows
• Conduct code reviews and mentor engineers through engineering best practices
• Contribute across the full technology stack whenever needed

Ideal Candidate Background
Experience Requirements

• 5+ years of experience as a Full-Stack Software Engineer or Product Engineer
• Experience building and shipping production software end-to-end
• Experience working at a high-growth startup, leading technology company, or as a founding engineer
• Experience owning product features from concept through production deployment
• Experience building customer-facing software products
• Experience conducting code reviews and mentoring junior engineers
• Experience collaborating closely with cross-functional stakeholders
• Startup experience strongly preferred
• Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced, high-ownership environments

Technical Requirements

• Strong Python engineering skills
• Experience building backend services using FastAPI or similar backend frameworks
• Strong PostgreSQL and relational database experience
• Comfortable working across frontend and backend systems
• Experience building AI/LLM-powered applications
• Daily user of AI coding tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex
• Strong API design and backend architecture fundamentals
• Experience building scalable production software
• Familiarity with React, TypeScript, or modern frontend frameworks
• Strong debugging, testing, and software engineering best practices

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field preferred
• Strong academic background from a top engineering program preferred
• Top-20 Computer Science program strongly preferred for candidates with fewer than 5 years of experience

Soft Skills

• Strong product mindset
• High ownership mentality
• Excellent communication skills
• Strong collaboration with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity
• Self-directed and proactive
• Bias toward execution
• Startup mentality
• Strong work ethic and ability to thrive in high-intensity environments

Preferred Backgrounds

• AI application startups
• LegalTech companies
• Product engineering organizations
• Enterprise SaaS startups
• Early-stage venture-backed startups
• Founding engineering teams
• AI-native software companies
• Full-stack product engineering teams
• Engineers building LLM-powered customer products
• High-growth technology companies

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $180,000 - $250,000
• Competitive Equity Package
• Direct collaboration with founders
• Significant ownership over product development
• Opportunity to build AI-powered customer products
• High-impact engineering role
• Exposure to cutting-edge AI development workflows
• Rapid career growth opportunities
• Onsite collaboration with a high-performing engineering team
• Visa Sponsorship Available

Why Join

This is an opportunity to help build AI-powered software that solves meaningful real-world problems while transforming complex professional workflows.

You'll own features from backend architecture through frontend experiences while working closely with founders, domain experts, and AI technologies to ship products used by real customers.

As an early product engineer, you'll have outsized influence on engineering culture, product direction, and customer impact while building practical AI applications in one of the fastest-growing AI software companies.