Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA | Full-time | Hybrid

Our hiring partner is a fast-scaling startup redefining emotional technology. Their product—a highly personalized, AI-powered virtual companion—has brought joy to millions of users globally, enabling deep human-digital connection. In just over a year, they’ve grown to $5M in ARR with a lean team of 4 and are already profitable. They've been featured in major outlets like The New York Times, WSJ, New Yorker, and Business Insider, and are backed by elite Silicon Valley investors.
Now entering its next stage of growth, the company is looking for a Founding Engineer to help shape the product, infrastructure, and future of the organization from the ground up.

About the Role
This is not your typical engineering role. You’ll sit at the intersection of product, engineering, and growth, working hands-on across all areas of development and strategy. As a Founding Engineer, you’ll influence the direction of the company in terms of architecture, product decisions, go-to-market execution, and customer experience.
This is the perfect opportunity for a builder who thrives in ambiguity, thinks like an owner, and is obsessed with solving problems that matter to real people.

What You’ll Do

• Build and scale core systems for a highly interactive, AI-powered consumer product
• Prototype and deploy new features, experiments, and interactions at rapid speed
• Apply the latest LLM and AI research directly to the product
• Identify technical bottlenecks and create elegant, scalable solutions
• Dive into growth efforts—growth hacking, retention loops, user behavior experiments
• Work cross-functionally with the founder and other early team members to shape roadmap and culture
• Obsess over user feedback, usability, and emotional impact of the product
• Wear multiple hats—this is a high-autonomy, high-responsibility role

Ideal Candidate ProfileCore Requirements:

• Bachelor’s or higher degree in Computer Science (top-tier programs strongly preferred)
• 3–5 years of hands-on engineering experience (backend, full stack, or systems)
• Demonstrated obsession with building great user-facing products
• Track record of fast learning, scrappy execution, and problem-solving under ambiguity
• Passion for AI, human-computer interaction, gaming, or virtual experiences
• Entrepreneurial spirit—comfortable owning product from idea to launch
• Strong grasp of how to use AI tools (e.g., LLMs, Copilot, etc.) to supercharge output
• Located in—or open to relocating to—the San Francisco Bay Area (preferred)

Bonus Points:

• Prior experience at an early-stage startup or building 0→1 products
• Experience in consumer AI, social apps, gaming, or emotional tech
• Background in growth experimentation and data-driven feature launches
• Demonstrated history of side projects, indie apps, or creator work

Why Join

• Direct impact on millions of users
• Build the future of AI-powered emotional connection
• Shape the company’s future tech stack, roadmap, and culture
• Work directly with a world-class founder and a lean, high-talent team
• Join a profitable startup with incredible upside and real product-market fit
• Backing by top-tier investors ensures access to resources, mentorship, and runway