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Founding Software Engineer

Location: New York, NY (Onsite)

Employment Type: Full-Time | Direct Hire

Compensation: $200,000–$220,000 Base Salary + Equity (Competitive Benefits)

Interview Process: 3 Interviews

Position Overview

Our client, a rapidly growing AI startup revolutionizing the insurance industry, is seeking a Founding Software Engineer to join its core Engineering team. This is a unique opportunity to become an early engineering hire, helping build the platform that powers enterprise AI agents used by some of the world's largest insurance carriers.

This role is ideal for an experienced software engineer who thrives in early-stage startup environments and enjoys solving complex distributed systems challenges. You'll play a foundational role in designing scalable infrastructure, developing AI-powered platforms, and building the engineering systems that enable rapid product innovation.

The ideal candidate is highly autonomous, technically exceptional, and excited by the opportunity to own critical systems from architecture through production. Culture fit is extremely important—the team values individuals who are personable, collaborative, scrappy, and capable of moving quickly with minimal direction.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain the core platform powering AI agents across the organization.
• Develop highly scalable backend services and infrastructure using TypeScript, SQL, and modern cloud technologies.
• Build and optimize agent orchestration, execution platforms, and developer tooling.
• Design resilient distributed systems with fault tolerance, observability, retries, and graceful degradation.
• Develop internal platforms that improve engineering productivity, CI/CD pipelines, and automation workflows.
• Partner closely with Forward Deployed Engineers to rapidly transform customer feedback into production-ready features.
• Write technical specifications, review architecture, and deliver high-quality production code.
• Improve platform reliability, performance, security, and scalability while supporting rapid company growth.
• Contribute to engineering best practices, code reviews, and long-term platform strategy.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience building production software in a Software Engineer, Backend Engineer, or Platform Engineer role.
• Strong programming experience with TypeScript and SQL .
• Experience designing and building scalable backend systems and distributed applications.
• Strong understanding of system architecture, APIs, databases, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience building highly reliable systems with monitoring, observability, retries, circuit breakers, and fault tolerance.
• Experience working in regulated or security-conscious environments with strong auditing and compliance requirements.
• Self-starter with exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently in a fast-paced startup environment.
• Must be located in or willing to relocate to New York City.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building AI, LLM, or agent-based platforms.
• Experience with developer platforms, CI/CD automation, and internal engineering tooling.
• Background building high-performance distributed systems or infrastructure platforms.
• Experience working in high-growth startups or founding engineering teams.
• Familiarity with cloud-native architecture, containerization, and modern DevOps practices.

What We're Looking For

• Highly autonomous engineer who takes full ownership from concept to production.
• Scrappy, resourceful, and thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Strong technical leader with a builder's mindset and passion for creating scalable systems.
• Collaborative team player who enjoys working closely with product, engineering, and customer-facing teams.
• Passionate about leveraging AI to solve complex, real-world business challenges.

This is an exceptional opportunity to join a venture-backed AI startup at an early stage, working alongside an elite engineering team to build the next generation of autonomous AI systems while making a significant impact on both the product and the future direction of the company.