Founding Engineer

Founding Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite, 5 days in person)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Compensation: $160,000 – $220,000 base + equity

About the Company

An early-stage, venture-backed startup building an advertising network purpose-built for AI-native consumer products. The team creates immersive, personalized ad formats — playable ads, animated character ads, sponsored experiences, and creative units designed to feel native rather than disruptive. The work sits at the intersection of advertising, consumer products, AI-generated media, and mobile entertainment. The team moves fast and ships often.

Industry: AI advertising / consumer AI

The Role

A Founding Engineer who can blend backend, ML, and traditional system design / infrastructure — a high-agency, high-slope builder, not someone filtered through a narrow tech-stack requirement. You'll be one of the earliest engineering hires and help shape the engineering culture.

What You'll Be Doing

• Backend systems work with a mix of ML and traditional system design / infrastructure
• Build features end-to-end across whatever the team is shipping
• Cross-functional work with the rest of the engineering team and founders
• Help shape the engineering culture as one of the early hires

Tech stack: Tech-stack agnostic. PyTorch fluency is a nice-to-have.

Requirements

• 0-3 years engineering
• Backend + ML + systems
• Side project track record

Green Flags

• Strong side project portfolio that demonstrates building outside of day-job scope.
• Recent grad or 0-3 YOE with exceptional signal (top engineering school, notable internships, or notable side projects)
• Background at Roblox, Meta, Amazon, or comparable consumer / ad infra companies with side-project signal

Red Flags

• Day-job-only engineer with no signal of building outside of work.
• Mid-career operator (5+ YOE) wanting Senior or Staff title. This is a founding-tier early hire.
• Pure ML research background without shipping production systems

Why Join

• A high-impact founding engineering seat at an AI-native advertising startup
• Direct working relationship with the founding team
• Meaningful equity
• Free lunch and dinner ($35 Uber Eats / DoorDash stipend) and an office gym

Details

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Work policy: Onsite, 5 days in person
• Compensation: $160,000–$220,000 + equity
• Visa sponsorship: None available — US citizens or visa holders only
• Employment type: Full-Time