Founding Engineer, Applied AI

Job Description

Job Description

San Francisco, CA · On-site (open to exceptional remote) · Full-time
Compensation: $180,000–$250,000 + 0.1%–1% equity

About the Company

A stealth-stage startup building AI for hardware engineering at complex manufacturers — automating engineering compliance and accelerating innovation at the intersection of AI, hardware, software, law, and policy. The company partners with leading automotive, aerospace, and industrial manufacturers and is backed by top-tier venture investors, with a founding team drawn from senior industry and government leadership.
Founded 2025 · 1–10 people (Seed) · Industry: AI Tools

The Role

Build the core systems behind an automation engine for hardware engineering — designing, implementing, and post-training AI agents that power critical product-development workflows for global enterprise customers. As one of the first technical hires, you'll own mission-critical systems end-to-end.

What you'll be doing

• Design and implement core workflows and infrastructure for hardware engineering agents, including intelligent context management, novel indexing approaches, and post-training
• Build agents and ML models that interpret, reason over, and manipulate complex engineering design data, integrating with enterprise-grade engineering tools and systems
• Work closely with customers and the engineering team to deliver AI-powered workflows that are reliable, intuitive, and trusted in production environments
• Prototype rapidly, validate ideas with real users, and ship frequently
• Influence engineering culture, architecture decisions, and the future of the product

Tech stack: Python, PyTorch, Hugging Face, W&B

Requirements

• 2-6 years of experience, open to exceptional new grads
• Strong Python and ML library experience (PyTorch, Hugging Face, W&B)
• Experience building production ML or AI systems
• Strong familiarity with LLM architectures and agent research trends
• Bachelor's or higher in CS, ML, or equivalent
• Genuine interest in technology, not for the money

Green Flags

• Experience in law/policy or customer-facing product work
• Track record of high-impact contributions or published papers at a top-tier AI lab or team, strongest signal of technical caliber
• Background in a domain with real-world constraints such as automotive, aerospace, robotics, or energy
• Experience with geometric data, CAD, or complex engineering design data, maps directly to what the company is building
• Post-training or fine-tuning experience, critical for the agent customization this role demands
• Genuine interest in the intersection of AI, hardware development, and policy

Red Flags

• Only research or academic AI experience with no production system background, mission-critical reliability is a hard requirement
• Weak customer collaboration skills, direct customer work is core to this role
• Slow moving or process-dependent, this role requires someone who prototypes, ships, and iterates fast
• No experience with search, information retrieval, or complex data systems
• Only cares about salary of the role
• Random resume padding and random startup experience

Why Join

• Founding-level ownership of mission-critical AI systems, end-to-end
• Backed by top-tier venture investors with a founding team drawn from senior industry and government leadership
• Build AI that integrates directly into the engineering environments of iconic automotive, aerospace, and industrial manufacturers

Details

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Work policy: On-site in SF highly preferred; open to an exceptional remote candidate
• Compensation: $180,000–$250,000 + equity
• Visa sponsorship: H-1B, O-1, OPT
• Employment type: Full-time