Staff 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.Staff EngineerLocation - San Francisco, CA (On-site) - Five days per week in-office in San Francisco, CA.Compensation - $250,000 – $300,000 Base + Competitive EquityVisa - US Citizens / Green Card Holders Only — No Visa Sponsorship or TransfersCompany Stage - Early Stage – $5.5M FundingIndustry - Artificial Intelligence, Data Infrastructure, Agentic AI, Software Development, Developer InfrastructureAbout the CompanyOur client is building a real-time people-data platform that provides deep context on individuals to power intelligent agents and next-generation applications.The platform dispatches tens of millions of autonomous AI agents across the open web to collect unique signals including GitHub activity, social posts, professional updates, company changes, career movements, and other difficult-to-capture behavioral data.These signals are connected at the individual level, creating a structured knowledge graph that spans hundreds of millions of websites and enables applications to reason about people using rich, real-time context.The platform is used by recruiting teams to identify and qualify talent with greater precision and by growth teams to uncover buyer intent and identify high-value prospects.The company is an extremely early-stage, founder-led organization with a small technical team and approximately $5.5M in funding. Engineers work directly with the CEO and CTO and have significant ownership over foundational infrastructure and technical strategy.As a Staff Engineer, you'll play a pivotal role in building the core agent infrastructure, scaling production systems, and shaping the technical architecture that will support the company's growth toward Series A.This is a high-leverage opportunity for an experienced engineer who enjoys ambiguity, first-principles problem solving, and building systems from the ground up.What You'll DoDesign, build, and operate core infrastructure powering people-data and agent platformsBuild production APIs supporting high-volume AI and data workloadsDevelop LLM-powered workflows and autonomous agent infrastructureBuild and maintain large-scale scraping and data collection systemsDesign and operate large-scale knowledge graph architectureArchitect production-grade systems capable of handling millions of API requestsOptimize system performance, reliability, and infrastructure costsBuild highly scalable distributed systems and microservicesDevelop reliable data pipelines supporting large-scale people-data infrastructureOperate production systems across cloud and Linux server environmentsDesign and maintain database architectures optimized for large-scale data workloadsOwn technical projects end-to-end from ambiguous problem definition through deployment and iterationIdentify technical problems independently and develop first-principles solutionsShip quickly while maintaining production reliability and system integrityCollaborate directly with the CEO and CTO on technical strategy and architectureInfluence roadmap priorities and foundational engineering decisionsHelp define long-term technical architecture as the company scalesContribute broadly across the engineering organization and companyBuild developer documentation, technical tutorials, and internal toolingDevelop experimental systems and prototypes to showcase and stress-test APIsEstablish strong engineering practices across architecture, reliability, and developmentOperate with high agency in a fast-moving, early-stage environmentIdeal Candidate BackgroundExperience Requirements10+ years of professional software engineering experienceStrong track record of shipping production softwareExperience designing and operating large-scale production systemsExperience building distributed systems and high-throughput infrastructureExperience owning complex technical projects end-to-endExperience working with APIs and backend infrastructureExperience building AI, LLM, or agent-powered systems preferredExperience working with large-scale data systems and pipelinesExperience working with cloud infrastructure and Linux environmentsExperience operating in early-stage or high-growth startups preferredStrong architecture and system design experienceExperience working closely with technical founders or senior leadership preferredStrong ownership mentality and demonstrated technical leadershipComfortable operating independently with minimal structureStrong first-principles problem-solving approachExperience building systems from the ground upTechnical RequirementsStrong backend software engineering fundamentalsStrong experience designing and operating production APIsExperience building distributed systems and microservicesStrong understanding of database architecture and optimizationExperience with large-scale data pipelinesExperience working with Linux servers and production environmentsExperience with AWS, GCP, or comparable cloud infrastructureExperience building scalable and reliable cloud systemsExperience with LLMs and AI-powered workflows preferredExperience building AI agent infrastructure preferredExperience designing knowledge graphs or large-scale data architectures preferredStrong understanding of system performance and optimizationExperience managing high-throughput production workloadsStrong understanding of reliability, observability, and production operationsExperience with database performance optimizationStrong API architecture and integration experienceStrong software architecture and system design capabilitiesAbility to build maintainable, production-grade softwareStrong debugging and performance engineering skillsEducationBachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related technical field preferredStrong computer science and software engineering fundamentalsEquivalent practical engineering experience acceptedSoft SkillsExceptional engineering ownershipStrong first-principles thinkingExcellent problem-solving abilityHigh execution velocityComfortable operating in extreme ambiguityStrong technical judgmentExcellent communication skillsComfortable working directly with foundersStrong product and business intuitionBias toward actionLow-ego collaborative mentalityComfortable working in a very small engineering organizationStrong sense of ownership over production systemsComfortable making architectural decisions independentlyStrong technical curiosityWillingness to contribute beyond a narrowly defined engineering roleComfortable operating in a high-intensity startup environmentStrong desire to build systems from scratchFounder mentality and high agencyCompensation & BenefitsBase Salary: $250,000 – $300,000Competitive Equity PackageOpportunity to join an extremely early-stage technical organizationSignificant ownership over core infrastructure and technical architectureDirect collaboration with CEO and CTOOpportunity to shape the company's technical strategyOpportunity to build large-scale AI agent infrastructure from the ground upExposure to LLMs, autonomous agents, data infrastructure, and knowledge graphsHigh-impact engineering role with broad technical scopeOpportunity to help shape the engineering organization ahead of Series AWhy JoinThis is a rare opportunity to join an extremely early-stage AI and data company and help build the infrastructure powering the emerging agent economy.You'll work on high-scale APIs, autonomous AI agents, web-scale data collection, knowledge graphs, distributed systems, and production infrastructure while operating directly alongside technical founders.As one of the earliest senior engineers, you'll have significant influence over architecture, engineering standards, technical strategy, and the systems that will support the company's next stage of growth.If you enjoy first-principles engineering, building complex infrastructure from scratch, solving difficult scaling problems, and operating with extreme ownership and autonomy, this role offers exceptional technical scope and impact.