Founding Engineer

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Founding Engineer based in Switzerland.** As a Founding Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in building and scaling an early-stage AI infrastructure product designed to transform how service businesses operate. Working directly with the founder, you will take broad ownership of the technical architecture, infrastructure, and product development from the ground up. You will help evolve an existing product into a reliable, scalable platform capable of supporting a growing user base and increasingly sophisticated AI-powered workflows. Your work will span full-stack engineering, AI agent systems, backend development, and infrastructure, offering significant influence over the product's technical direction. In this hands-on role, you will turn ambitious ideas into production-ready solutions used by real businesses. You will also establish engineering standards and practices that shape the future of the team as it grows. This is an opportunity for an entrepreneurial engineer who thrives on autonomy, rapid execution, and solving complex challenges at the intersection of software engineering and AI. ### Accountabilities: - **Build scalable technical infrastructure:** Design and implement the architecture, systems, and infrastructure required to support substantial product growth, ensuring reliability, performance, and scalability as the user base expands. - **Develop AI agent infrastructure:** Build and operate the agent runtime, including orchestration, memory management, verification mechanisms, and supporting systems that enable dependable AI-powered workflows. - **Own end-to-end product development:** Lead projects from initial concept through deployment, working across backend services, infrastructure, frontend interfaces, and AI agent functionality. - **Transform prototypes into production systems:** Evolve existing product capabilities into robust, maintainable solutions that can reliably support real-world business operations and demanding production workloads. - **Drive technical architecture and decision-making:** Work directly with the founder to define the technical vision, evaluate architectural trade-offs, select appropriate technologies, and establish the foundations for long-term product development. - **Establish engineering standards:** Introduce development practices, architectural principles, and quality standards that support efficient delivery and prepare the engineering organization for future growth. - **Deliver continuous product improvements:** Ship enhancements regularly, respond to user feedback, and prioritize improvements that create measurable value for businesses relying on the platform. - **Improve AI system reliability:** Develop and refine agent workflows, evaluations, memory systems, and verification processes to improve the consistency and dependability of AI-driven functionality. - **Operate with broad ownership:** Identify technical challenges proactively, make independent decisions, and balance immediate product needs with the long-term quality and scalability of the platform. ## Requirements: - **Professional engineering experience:** At least two years of experience delivering production software, or an equivalent track record as a founder, independent builder, or exceptional early-career engineer with demonstrated technical ability. - **Production AI experience:** Hands-on experience building and operating large language model (LLM) applications or AI agent systems in production, particularly products used by real customers or businesses. - **Full-stack engineering capabilities:** Ability to work across backend development, infrastructure, and frontend interfaces, with the versatility to take ownership of different technical challenges as priorities evolve. - **Strong software architecture skills:** Experience designing reliable systems, including appropriate data models, runtime architecture, orchestration mechanisms, and infrastructure capable of supporting production workloads. - **AI agent expertise:** Practical understanding of agent workflows, memory systems, evaluation methods, verification techniques, or related approaches to improving the reliability of AI-powered applications is highly valuable. - **Entrepreneurial mindset:** Evidence of making technical decisions independently, taking ownership of complex projects, and delivering functional solutions quickly in an early-stage startup, founder-led, or independent working environment. - **Generalist problem-solving ability:** Strong fundamentals in software engineering, analytical thinking, debugging, and system design, with the ability to move between product, infrastructure, and AI-related challenges. - **Execution and adaptability:** Ability to work effectively with ambiguity, prioritize competing demands, iterate rapidly, and make pragmatic trade-offs without compromising essential system reliability. - **Collaborative communication:** Comfort working directly with a founder, contributing to product strategy, communicating technical decisions clearly, and helping establish a collaborative engineering culture. - **Location and relocation:** Currently based in Europe and willing to relocate to San Francisco within the first year. Relocation support and visa sponsorship are available. ## Benefits: - **Competitive salary:** Annual base salary ranging from **€80,000 to €140,000**, depending on experience and qualifications. - **Visa sponsorship:** Immigration support is available for relocation to San Francisco. - **Relocation assistance:** Support for the move from Europe to San Francisco within the first year. - **Founding-level ownership:** Take a leading role in shaping the product's architecture, technical direction, and engineering foundations from an early stage. - **Direct founder collaboration:** Work closely with the founder, contributing to important technical and product decisions with a high degree of autonomy. - **Broad technical scope:** Gain hands-on experience across full-stack engineering, AI agents, infrastructure, and production system design. - **Meaningful product impact:** Build AI-powered solutions that support real businesses and influence how they operate. - **Opportunity to shape an engineering team:** Establish technical standards, development practices, and architectural principles that guide future engineering hires. - **International career opportunity:** Begin working remotely from Europe, with the opportunity to relocate to San Francisco and participate in the next stage of the company's growth.