Founding AI Engineer

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.

Title of Role: Founding AI Engineer (Agentic Systems / Full-Stack)
Location: San Francisco, CA
Company Stage of Funding: Seed Stage (~$7.5M raised)
Office Type: Hybrid (3-4 days/week in office)
Salary: $230,000 - $300,000 + Equity
Company Description

Our client is an early-stage, venture-backed AI startup building the next generation of "AI coworkers"-autonomous systems that can own and execute entire business workflows end-to-end. Unlike traditional AI tools that assist users, their platform is designed to replace operational work by orchestrating multi-step processes across systems.

Founded by experienced operators who previously scaled enterprise teams at leading AI companies, the company is working with top-tier design partners and is rapidly building out its founding engineering team to define this new category.
What You Will Do

• Build core agentic systems that automate complex business workflows end-to-end
• Design and implement multi-step AI agents with memory, reasoning, and orchestration
• Work across the full stack (frontend, backend, and infrastructure) to ship product features
• Partner directly with founders and customers to define product direction
• Solve hard problems around reliability, hallucination, and system trust at scale
• Build integrations across enterprise tools (CRM, communication, and workflow systems)
• Own product surfaces from concept to production deployment
• Help define engineering standards, architecture, and team culture as a founding member

Ideal Candidate Background

• 3-10 years of software engineering experience
• Proven experience building production AI systems (agents, not just RAG/chatbots)
• Strong proficiency across the stack (backend + frontend as needed)
• Experience working in early-stage startups or high-ambiguity environments
• Deep understanding of LLM limitations (hallucination, state, reliability) and mitigation strategies
• Strong product mindset with ability to define and build solutions end-to-end
• High ownership, strong opinions, and ability to operate independently

Preferred

• Experience building multi-agent or autonomous systems with real-world impact
• Experience at top-tier AI or product-first companies (e.g., OpenAI, Scale AI, Notion, Retool)
• Background as a founder or early engineering hire
• Experience with workflow orchestration systems or event-driven architectures
• Familiarity with GTM tools (Salesforce, Slack, Outreach, etc.)
• Strong academic background in Computer Science or related field

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive base salary: $230,000 - $300,000
• Founding-level equity: ~0.5% - 5% (depending on experience)
• High ownership and direct impact on company trajectory
• Work directly with experienced founders from top AI companies
• Opportunity to define a new category in AI (agentic workflow automation)
• Hybrid work in San Francisco with a small, high-caliber team
• Fast, founder-led hiring process

This is a rare opportunity to join at the ground floor of an AI-native company building autonomous systems that fundamentally change how work gets done.