Founding AI Engineer

Founding AI Engineer

$180,000 - $280,000 + 1-2% Equity + 401(k) + Benefits + Flexible PTO

San Francisco, CA - On-site

Are you an AI Engineer with a deep focus on agentic systems, looking to join one of the strongest YC start-ups of recent batches, transforming one of the largest and most under-optimized multi-trillion dollar industries in the world?

This is an exciting opportunity to join a fast-growing YC-backed AI startup that has raised one of the largest seeds in its space, is already working with some of the biggest enterprise names in its industry, and has hit Series A metrics within months of founding. The team is building an agentic AI platform that replaces deeply entrenched manual workflow - deploying AI agents that handle complex, compliance-heavy tasks that have been done by hand for decades. The CEO and CTO are both multiple-time YC founders with exits under their belt, and their seed round was led personally by one of YC's most respected partners - these are seriously high-conviction founders.

As one of the first engineers, you'll be at the centre of the agentic work - designing and building the AI agents, evaluation systems, and human-agent interaction patterns that sit at the core of the product. The founders have previously built and exited a VC-backed startup in this space and scaled engineering teams through hyper-growth, so you'll be working with people who know exactly what they're doing and why.

This is a hands-on, high-impact role for engineers who bring genuine depth in agentic AI, thrive in ambiguity, and want to operate at the intersection of cutting-edge AI and a market that is genuinely ready to be disrupted - in a company where the foundations are as solid as they come.

The Role

• Architect and build AI agents from scratch for complex, compliance-heavy enterprise workflows
• Design and own evaluation frameworks to ensure accuracy and reliability across highly specialised agentic tasks
• Develop and iterate on human-agent interaction patterns that work in regulated, high-stakes environments
• Embed regulatory and legal compliance directly into agent reasoning and task execution
• Build and maintain backend infrastructure that supports fast-scaling agentic workloads
• Work directly with enterprise customers to understand problems, validate agent behaviour, and iterate quickly

The Person

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience, with meaningful time spent on agentic AI systems
• Hands-on experience building with AI agents and agentic frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, or similar)
• Strong Python skills - the primary language for agentic work here
• Strong communication skills - you can discuss agent behaviour with enterprise customers as clearly as you can debate architecture with engineers
• Comfortable working with high ownership and autonomy in a fast-moving, in-person environment
• Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco

Rise Technical Recruitment Inc of 1011 Centre Rd, Suite 322, Wilmington, DE 19805 act as an employer-paid private personnel agency.

The salary advertised is the bracket available for this position. The actual salary paid will be dependent on your level of experience, qualifications and skill set and will be decided by our client, the employer. Rise are not responsible or liable for any hiring decisions made by the end client.

We are an equal opportunities company and welcome applications from all suitable candidates.