Founding AI & Software Leader — Remote, Equity Up to 30%

Founder / Founding AI & Software Engineering Leader – Remote U.S.

Location:
Remote – United States only

Compensation:
Base salary from
$300,000+
, plus founder-level equity of up to
30%

Eligibility:
Candidates must currently be based in the United States and legally authorized to work in the U.S.

Working Style:
Remote-first, with collaboration across U.S. Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern time zones

Opportunities:
Multiple founder-level roles across AI, deep tech, enterprise software and infrastructure

Build What’s Next

The Blackgate
partners with a select group of investors, founders, private equity firms, family offices and venture-backed technology companies across the United States.

Our partners are looking to add serious technical firepower to their leadership teams and engineering organizations—exceptional builders who can accelerate execution, scale products and create category-defining AI and software businesses.

These are not traditional employee roles.

They are founder-level opportunities for exceptional engineers who want meaningful ownership, deep technical autonomy and the ability to shape the future of AI and software from day one.

Who We’re Looking For

We are looking to connect with exceptional technical leaders who have operated at the highest levels of software engineering, AI, infrastructure and platform delivery, including:

• Founder
• Technical Co-Founder
• Founding Engineer
• Founding AI Engineer
• Founding Software Engineer
• Chief Technology Officer
• VP of Engineering
• Head of AI
• Head of Engineering
• Staff Software Engineer
• Principal Software Engineer
• Distinguished Engineer
• Senior AI Infrastructure Engineer
• AI Systems Engineer
• Machine Learning Engineer
• Applied AI Engineer
• AI Platform Engineer
• LLM Engineer
• Generative AI Engineer
• Backend Engineer
• Distributed Systems Engineer
• Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
• Platform Engineer
• DevOps Engineer
• Site Reliability Engineer
• Data Infrastructure Engineer
• MLOps Engineer
• AI Research Engineer
• Systems Architect
• Software Architect
• AI Solutions Architect
• Cloud Architect
• Technical Lead
• Full Stack Engineer
• Product Engineer

What You May Build

Depending on the opportunity, you may lead the architecture, design and delivery of:

• Large Language Model platforms
• AI agents and autonomous agentic systems
• Multi-agent architectures
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems
• Vector database platforms
• Semantic search
• AI inference infrastructure
• Fine-tuning infrastructure
• AI orchestration platforms
• Distributed systems
• Microservices architecture
• Event-driven architecture
• Service-oriented architecture
• Cloud-native platforms
• Kubernetes infrastructure
• Containerized environments
• GPU compute infrastructure
• High-performance computing platforms
• Enterprise API platforms
• Data pipelines
• Streaming platforms
• Real-time processing systems
• Serverless infrastructure
• MLOps platforms
• CI/CD automation
• Observability and monitoring systems
• Identity and security architecture
• Multi-cloud infrastructure
• Edge computing platforms
• Data engineering platforms
• Knowledge graph architecture
• Enterprise AI integrations
• Scalable SaaS platforms

Technologies

Our partners are interested in leaders who can work across modern AI, cloud, infrastructure and software stacks, including:

Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, Java, C++, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, Ray, CUDA, PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangChain, LangGraph, Hugging Face, OpenAI APIs, Anthropic APIs, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Snowflake, Databricks, Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, Elasticsearch, GitHub Actions and emerging AI technologies.

Compensation and Benefits

Our investment partners understand that exceptional engineers create exceptional companies.

Typical packages include:

- Base salary from
$300,000+
, with flexibility for world-class candidates
- Founder-level equity of up to
30%
, depending on the opportunity
- Performance-based bonus structure
- Sign-on compensation where appropriate - Complete technical autonomy - Direct access to founders, boards and investors - Freedom to select architecture, tooling and technology stacks - Remote-first working anywhere within the United States - Flexible, outcome-focused working environment - $5,000 home office allowance
- Latest MacBook Pro or workstation of your choice - Specialist hardware and equipment provided as required - Annual learning and development budget - Paid attendance at leading AI and engineering conferences - Quarterly engineering off-sites with founders, investors and leadership teams - Access to enterprise-grade AI infrastructure and GPU compute resources - Minimal bureaucracy, rapid decision-making and the ability to ship products at pace

What Success Looks Like

In these roles, success means building real technology, not sitting in endless strategy meetings.

You may be expected to:

• Define the technical vision from day one
• Architect and build production-grade AI platforms
• Scale engineering execution across product, platform and infrastructure
• Hire and lead high-caliber engineering teams
• Ship meaningful products quickly
• Work directly with customers, founders and investors
• Turn ambitious technical concepts into commercially valuable companies

Who You Are

You are an exceptional engineer, architect or technical leader who enjoys solving hard problems, building from first principles and delivering software that changes industries.

You are motivated by ownership, technical excellence, speed and impact.

You want more than another senior job title.

You want the opportunity to build, lead and own something significant.

About The Blackgate

At
The Blackgate
, we do not simply recruit. We are an Executive Leadership Network connecting Boards, Investors, Owners and Leaders. Membership required.

We partner with investors and founders to identify exceptional technical leaders capable of transforming ambitious ideas into market-leading technology companies.

Our network spans AI, enterprise software, infrastructure, cybersecurity, fintech, defense technology, healthcare technology and deep technology ventures.

We believe extraordinary engineers deserve extraordinary opportunities—and we connect them with investors who are prepared to back them accordingly.