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Founding Engineer

$150k - $350k

MLabs

Founding Engineer

Location: New York, NY

On-site | Full-time

Compensation: $150K - $350K

Our client is a high-growth, venture-backed startup on a mission to reinvent technical interviewing and transform the global $600B+ staffing industry. By moving beyond traditional "LeetCode" style evaluations, our client has developed a fundamentally better way for companies to identify talent, combat fraud, and market top-tier candidates to Fortune 500 organizations.

The organization is currently at an ideal inflection point: they have moved past product-market fit and are entering a rapid scaling phase. Backed by a $3.1M seed round from premier investors—including GSV Ventures, BoxGroup, and angels from OpenAI, SpaceX, and Retool—the company has already surpassed seven figures in revenue. Their customer base includes dozens of enterprise staffing firms, including the largest staffing firm in the world.

Our client is seeking a Founding Engineer to join a talent-dense team of seven hailing from institutions and companies such as Stanford, Penn, Waterloo, Retool, and MongoDB. This is a high-impact role for a builder who wants to own critical systems and define the technical standards for an entire industry.

Key Responsibilities

  • Innovation in Evaluation: Define and build the new standard for technical interviewing, creating systems that retire outdated evaluation methods and provide high-fidelity talent assessments.
  • AI Implementation: Utilize AI and machine learning to detect fraud, identify complex patterns in candidate performance, and significantly accelerate the hiring lifecycle.
  • System Architecture: Design, develop, and maintain critical full-stack systems from the ground up, ensuring high performance and scalability.
  • End-to-End Ownership: Manage features and systems through the entire lifecycle—from initial concept and architectural design to deployment and monitoring.
  • Strategic Input: As one of the first engineering hires, play a key role in shaping the technical roadmap and making fundamental architecture decisions.

Requirements

  • Technical Proficiency: 4+ years of experience in modern full-stack development. Advanced proficiency in React, Node.js, and Python (or similar frameworks) is expected.
  • Infrastructure Knowledge: Experience managing cloud-native infrastructure within AWS, GCP, or Azure .
  • Startup Mindset: Demonstrated ability to thrive in a fast-moving, high-performance startup environment where ambiguity is common.
  • Coding Fundamentals: Highly technical with a strong bias toward code quality, security, and performance.
  • Founding Mentality: A desire to solve problems end-to-end and a willingness to take radical ownership over outcomes rather than just tickets.
  • Location: Ability to work on-site five days a week in the New York City office to foster high-bandwidth collaboration.
  • Sponsorship and relocation: Our client is open to candidates who will relocate and will consider visa sponsorship.

Benefits

  • Build the Future: Join at the ground floor and play a pivotal role in shaping both the product and the company culture while solving complex, industry-wide problems.
  • Competitive Pay & Equity: Competitive compensation packages including significant equity ownership to ensure early hires benefit from the company's growth.
  • Comprehensive Health Insurance: Health insurance coverage provided for both the employee and their dependents.
  • Financial Wellness: A 401(k) plan is provided to help the team invest in their long-term financial future.
  • Onsite Benefits: Work from a Midtown Manhattan office with daily team lunches, dinners, and a fully stocked selection of snacks and beverages.
  • Quarterly Offsites: Opportunities to travel together every quarter to bond, brainstorm, and recharge as a team.
  • Early Impact: Join at a critical inflection point—past product-market fit, but before scaling takes over.

Due to the high volume of applications we anticipate, we regret that we are unable to provide individual feedback to all candidates. If you do not hear back from us within 4 weeks of your application, please assume that you have not been successful on this occasion. We genuinely appreciate your interest and wish you the best in your job search.

Commitment to Equality and Accessibility:

At MLabs, we are committed to offer equal opportunities to all candidates. We ensure no discrimination, accessible job adverts, and providing information in accessible formats. Our goal is to foster a diverse, inclusive workplace with equal opportunities for all. If you need any reasonable adjustments during any part of the hiring process or you would like to see the job-advert in an accessible format please let us know at the earliest opportunity by emailing View email address on click.appcast.io.

MLabs Ltd collects and processes the personal information you provide such as your contact details, work history, resume, and other relevant data for recruitment purposes only. This information is managed securely in accordance with MLabs Ltd’s Privacy Policy and Information Security Policy, and in compliance with applicable data protection laws. Your data may be shared only with clients and trusted partners where necessary for recruitment purposes. You may request the deletion of your data or withdraw your consent at any time by contacting View email address on click.appcast.io.

Vacancy posted 15 hours ago
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