Founding AI Product Engineer
Location: San Francisco, CA (60 hour work weeks)
Compensation: $200,000-$260,000 base + equity + benefits
About the Opportunity
An early-stage, profitable AI infrastructure startup is looking for a
Founding AI Product Engineer to build the company's next major product alongside the founders.
This is a rare opportunity to join a small, high-impact engineering team where you'll own products from concept to production, work directly with customers, and help shape product strategy from day one.
You'll spend approximately
50% of your time building software and 50% speaking with users, helping identify problems worth solving and rapidly turning feedback into production-ready features.
What You'll Be Doing
- Build a new AI developer product from the ground up.
- Own the full product development lifecycle, from customer discovery to production deployment.
- Speak directly with developers to understand pain points and validate product ideas.
- Design and build backend APIs, infrastructure, and developer tooling.
- Ship features quickly while maintaining high engineering quality.
- Influence product direction alongside the founding team.
- Help establish the product engineering culture as one of the company's first Product Engineers.
What We're Looking For
- 2+ years of software engineering experience.
- Strong Python fundamentals (deep expertise not required).
- Experience building and launching production software.
- Comfortable working across backend systems, APIs, infrastructure, and developer tools.
- Excellent communication skills with strong customer empathy.
- Startup mindset with the ability to thrive in ambiguity and move quickly.
- Strong computer science fundamentals.
- Experience building products that attracted real users is highly valued.
- Open-source contributions or meaningful side projects are a strong plus.
Interview Process
Introductory conversation with the founder.Virtual technical interview focused on coding and product thinking (no AI assistance).San Francisco onsite interview including a mock customer discovery and product design session. Why Join?
- Founding Product Engineer with significant ownership from day one.
- Build a flagship AI product from the ground up.
- Work directly with experienced founders every day.
- Influence product strategy-not just implementation.
- Small team where ideas ship quickly and have immediate customer impact.
- Build technology used by thousands of engineering teams worldwide.
- Join a profitable, high-growth company with strong market traction.
Compensation & Benefits
- $200K-260K base salary
- Competitive equity package
- Medical, Dental & Vision
- 401(k)
- Visa sponsorship available
- Relocation assistance available
Working Style
This is a fast-paced startup environment best suited for engineers who enjoy building, talking to customers, and shipping quickly. The team values curiosity, ownership, customer obsession, and the ability to create products people genuinely love to use.
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