Founding AI Systems Engineer
Insight Global
One of our gaming startup clients is building an autonomous, multimodal storytelling engine - think Westworldstyle characters, dynamic worlds, and realtime narrative generation delivered as a mobile entertainment product. U can create or enter story worlds, make choices, speak to characters, and watch the world respond with AIgenerated images, video, voice, and plot twists. Working prototypes exist; now the challenge is scaling the system so it can generate full 3-4 minute "episodes" on demand.
Your daytoday is owning the pipelines that make this possible. You'll orchestrate "everything models" (LLM, image, video, voice, music), manage world and story context, build longrunning state machines, and ensure the system can oneshot entire episodes without human intervention. You'll take over the multimodal pipeline work from the current LLM engineer, split workstreams, and define the architecture that gets this product from prototype to production. This is a foundinglevel role where you lead projects, make architectural decisions, and bring taste, judgment, and speed to a passionate SF team.
Required Skills & Experience
• Shipped multiservice AI pipelines (LLM + image + video + voice + music) in production
• Endtoend ownership of complex systems (architecture deployment debugging iteration)
• Strong Python; comfortable with TypeScript/React for integration
• Experience with workflow orchestration (state machines, queues, longrunning jobs, resumability)
• Reliability engineering (retries, circuit breakers, idempotency, checkpointing, partial failure recovery)
• Evaluation systems (LLMasjudge, regression testing, quality gating, sampling)
• Cost + latency optimization across multimodel pipelines
• Startupnative: proactive, selfdirected, comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration
Strong GitHub or side projects showing passion for AI systems
Nice to Have Skills & Experience
• Multiagent systems Experience designing agents that coordinate tasks, pass context, call tools, or manage longrunning goals (e.g., planning agents, character agents, workflow agents). Ideally: built agents that maintain memory, world state, or persona consistency.
• Narrative / character AI systems Built systems for interactive storytelling, character simulation, branching narratives, or gamelike experiences where AI drives plot, tone, or dialogue.
• Emotionaltone or voicetone modeling Worked with voice models that detect tone, emotion, or intent - or built pipelines that adapt narrative/character behavior based on user tone.
• Selfhosted model deployment or GPU infrastructure Experience running models on owned GPU clusters, optimizing inference, managing scaling, or deploying custom model variants.
• Finetuning or training workflows Handson experience finetuning LLMs or diffusion/video models, managing datasets, evaluating checkpoints, and shipping tuned models into production.
• Mobilefirst AI experiences Built AI systems that run efficiently on mobile clients or mobilefirst products (latency, caching, streaming constraints).
• Game engine or worldbuilding experience Worked with Unity/Unreal or custom engines to generate scenes, environments, or cutscenes - or built systems that maintain world rules and continuity.
• Experience at Character.ai, Polybuzz, Inworld, Runway, or similar Exposure to highscale, multimodal, or agentic AI products.
Benefit packages for this role will start on the 1st day of employment and include medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as HSA, FSA, and DCFSA account options, and 401k retirement account access with employer matching. Employees in this role are also entitled to paid sick leave and/or other paid time off as provided by applicable law.
$180k - $250k
A leading AI language learning platform is hiring a Founding AI Systems Engineer in San Francisco. You will lead the architecture of AI systems that enhance language learning through personalized dialogue. The role requires a systems-thinking background and experience...Suggested$200k - $300k
Fragment Data Technologies is seeking Founding Engineers in San Francisco to design and build foundational architectures for AI agents that resolve procurement exceptions across complex enterprise data. Ideal candidates should have 2-7 years of experience, be comfortable...Suggested- AI Chopping Block, Inc. is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to enhance AI-driven operational capabilities. This hybrid position requires expertise in software engineering... .... You'll be responsible for building production systems, data pipelines, and evaluating AI performance....Suggested
- A technology startup is looking for a Founding AI Engineer to architect their core intelligence systems. The role involves building enterprise-level AI-powered software, evaluating model performance, and collaborating with founders to turn operational challenges into scalable...Suggested
- A leading AI technology firm in San Francisco is seeking an AI/Data Systems Engineer to build critical data pipelines that transform unstructured inputs into structured outputs. This role involves ensuring the accuracy and reliability of data that supports simulations...Suggested
$160k - $250k
...Title: Founding AI Engineer (Research & Systems) Target: PhDs & Research Masters from Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, CMU focused on AI, ML, NLP, Agents. Location: San Francisco, CA | On-Site Compensation: $160K - $250K | 0.8% - 2.0% Equity Visa Sponsorship: Available...H1bImmediate startVisa sponsorship$230k - $300k
...the best people in the right roles to drive long-term success for both clients and candidates. Title of Role: Founding AI Engineer (Agentic Systems / Full-Stack) Location: San Francisco, CA Company Stage of Funding: Seed Stage (~$7.5M raised) Office...Work at officeImmediate start3 days per week- ...This is a job that Jill, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers. She will pick the best candidates... ...The next step is to speak to Jack. Job Title: AI-Native Founding Engineer Company Description: Fancysauce Inc. - AI-native load...
$150k - $250k
...to keep Moore's law going by building AI agents that automate large swaths of repetitive... ...nodes. About the Role As a Founding AI Engineer, you will own the core intelligence of... ...has built and shipped agentic AI systems as a founder, as a founding engineer, or...- ...Founding AI Engineer Weave (YC W25) is building the definitive platform for understanding and improving how engineering teams work. We believe the way engineering output is measured today is fundamentally broken and that modern AI can give teams a far more accurate...
- ...Founding Ai Engineer At Falconer, we're transforming how engineers create, access, and share knowledge with each other and their AI agents... ...tuning, and model optimization Develop and maintain backend systems including API services, databases, and server-side logic...Work experience placementWork at officeFlexible hours
- ...users and measurably improves patient outcomes, you’ll feel at home here. The role We're hiring a Founding AI Engineer to design and ship the AI systems at the core of our product. You'll work in a fast, hands-on environment, iterating quickly with customers to...Full timeShift work3 days per week
$100k - $150k
...This is a job that Jill, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of... ...step is to speak to Jack. Job Title: Founding AI Engineer - Agent Runtime Salary: $100k-$150k... ...multiple B2B companies. Tackle deep systems engineering challenges by moving beyond...$180k - $220k
Who we are: Cooper AI is building AI for commercial insurance, taking the manual, time‑consuming work off professionals’ plates... ...insurance industry. About the role: We’re hiring the Founding Engineering team for a new hyper‑growth AI business unit. You’ll build AI...Full timeWork experience placementLocal areaWork from home$150k - $185k
Early-career founding AI role for a recent graduate or engineer with roughly two years of experience who has already shipped AI systems to real users and wants to grow into senior ownership across agents, retrieval, evals, observability, and document or voice pipelines...Full timeInternshipWork at office- Stealth AI Infrastructure Startup is seeking a Founding / Early Engineer for real-time AI systems in healthcare. You'll take ownership of GPU-powered systems that operate locally in clinics, ensuring AI functions during patient care. Required expertise includes TensorRT...
- David Joseph & Company in San Francisco is seeking a Founding Engineer for an early-stage AI company developing an AI-native operating system. This role offers product architecture ownership and execution from design to deployment, ideal for a resourceful engineer who...
$130k - $200k
A fast-growing Healthtech AI startup is seeking a Founding AI Engineer to develop LLM-powered systems for medical diagnosis and treatment. This role offers the opportunity to impact patient outcomes directly by building production-ready AI solutions. Requirements include...- A tech startup in San Francisco is seeking a Founding Engineer to build one working AI application each week, optimizing product performance and achieving revenue milestones. The ideal candidate has over 5 years of experience in software production, with expertise in TypeScript...
$130k - $200k
This is a job that Jill, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of... .... The next step is to speak to Jack. Founding AI Engineer Salary: $130,000 - $200,000 + Equity Company... ...medical practice, building LLM-powered systems for immediate diagnosis and treatment....Immediate start$140k - $220k
Legion Health seeks a Founding Engineer in San Francisco to own the infrastructure for their autonomous mental healthcare system. This role involves shaping the event-driven backend architecture... ...Node.js and TypeScript, integrating AI agents, and ensuring compliance with...Flexible hours- Strategic Employment Partners (SEP) is seeking a founding engineer for their healthcare AI platform based in San Francisco. You will directly interface with therapists, ship code daily, and play a key role in shaping the product and engineering culture. Ideal candidates...
- A leading healthcare tech startup in San Francisco is seeking a founding engineer to build and scale AI infrastructure. The role involves collaborating with a skilled team to shape the company's product and culture. Candidates should have 1 to 10+ years of experience in...
- Jack & Jill is seeking a Founding Engineer to architect an essential governance layer for AI adoption in regulated enterprises. Located in San Francisco, this role offers a high-impact trajectory with significant equity. The ideal candidate will build integrations with...
- Gallop Intelligence Inc. is seeking a Founding AI Engineer to lead the development of advanced AI systems that modernize legacy software for Fortune 500 companies. This role offers significant ownership and requires expertise in production-grade software development and...
- A leading AI startup in San Francisco seeks an AI Engineer to join their founding team. In this role, you will develop and optimize advanced AI models that support the logistics industry, which plays a critical role in the economy. The position requires hands-on experience...
- Wildcard is looking for a Founding Engineer to lead the development of their AI commerce platform in San Francisco. The role requires a strong full-stack engineering capability, with experience in fast-paced startups and a clear ownership mentality. You will shape product...
- A technology startup in San Francisco is seeking a Founding AI Engineer to develop an AI-powered knowledge platform. You will participate in... ...product development from architecture to deployment, optimize systems, and implement backend services. Candidates should have an...Flexible hours
- ...exists to turn GTM signal into company-wide execution. As Revic’s Founding GTM AI Engineer, you will work directly with Revic’s CEO, Head of Revenue, and Head of Engineering to design and build the systems that translate real customer conversations and GTM data into...Remote work
$100k - $150k
Most AI systems generate text. We’re building one that makes decisions . Pareto Agent is a... ...Headquartered in San Francisco, the company is founded by serial entrepreneurs who have... ...investors. The Role As our Founding Software Engineer — Studio , you will own the full product...Summer workWork at officeFlexible hours
Do you want to receive more vacancies?
Subscribe and receive similar vacancies to Founding AI Systems Engineer. Be the first to apply!
- ai developer Berkeley, CA
- ai engineer Berkeley, CA
- healthcare systems engineer Berkeley, CA
- systems engineer Berkeley, CA
- operations support system engineer Berkeley, CA
- system engineer remote Berkeley, CA
- operating system engineer Berkeley, CA
- senior windows systems engineer Berkeley, CA
- advanced systems engineer Berkeley, CA
- senior staff systems engineer Berkeley, CA


