Founding Engineer

About Shared Context

For the first time in human history, machines can adapt - and we are within reach of transforming the relationship between people and computers. Of building software that adapts to each & every individual person. Of transforming the user into the maker.

At Shared Context Lab, we envision a rich and vibrant future powered by software that learns, that is malleable to you, and that orchestrates vast resources in the service of furthering your goals. We believe in Personal AI - a new way of interacting with computers, with each other, and with the world.

The future of AI will be centered around highly contextual and multi-player AI's. And we're building the backbone for how these AI's will learn about what will become their world: the messy world of humans, schedules, and social relationships. Our experiments and products push the boundaries of how we interact with AI.

We are funded by leading VCs and are a startup-in-residence at the iconic design and innovation firm, IDEO.

Founding Engineer

To make this future possible, we're hiring our first engineer.

What we're looking for is tenacity, creativity, and a refusal to take no for an answer, because we're creating the future.

We want someone highly technical, high ownership, and energized by building with results. Someone who moves fast (It's 4pm on a Friday and you see a bug, and by 5pm it's fixed. We don't have a billing system? No problem), thinks in systems, and improves the status quo.

We care deeply about design, UX, and human-centered thinking. The things you make are not just powerful, but thoughtful, intuitive, and well-crafted.

What you'll do

• Partner directly with the CEO and CTO on building core product and infrastructure from the ground up
• Own major parts of the stack end to end from design to execution
• Ship quickly, iterate constantly, and make smart technical tradeoffs
• Savvy with agentic coding and product development tools - you can use as many tokens as you need
• Be a foundational cultural anchor for the company by shaping what we do, how we work, and what values we hold close

What we're looking for

• Strong technical skills
  
  • Frontend: React/NextJS/TypeScript; component-driven development, performance profiling, accessibility, data fetching/state, etc.
  • Backend: Python FastAPI, background workers/queues, Postgres, object storage, etc.
  • Experience with testing and observability (unit/integration tests, metrics, traces, structured logs)
  • Experience building and shipping real products in fast-moving environments
  • LLM/agent experience - you must have created your own agents before
• Great product instincts and genuine care for design, UX, and human-centered product development
• Comfortable with ambiguity, ownership, and figuring things out without waiting for perfect specs
• Clear communicator with high standards, low ego, and strong opinions held loosely
• Curious, growth-oriented, and a tinkerer at heart and ideally have built 0-1 previously

If you want to be early, close to the work, and hands-on in building something people truly love, we'd love to talk.

Please note: This is an in-person role in SF or NY.