About the Role
This is a rare, high-impact founding engineer position at an early-stage consumer AI startup building a real-time, AI-enabled platform to digitize human connection. You'll work directly alongside the founder — a Thiel Fellow — as one of the first engineers, shaping both the product and the engineering culture from the ground up. This is a fully on-site role in San Francisco.
You'll take on broad technical ownership across a bold consumer product focused on scalable, meaningful human interactions — integrating cutting-edge real-time video, audio, and memory systems.
What You'll Do
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Work across all aspects of the application alongside the founder, designers, and other engineers.
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Build new systems for memory, retrieval, proactivity, and AI responsiveness.
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Integrate the latest internal and external real-time video generation and audio synthesis models.
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Set the bar for engineering quality and help recruit world-class talent to the team.
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Dogfood the product extensively — you genuinely care about real user value and quality.
What We're Looking For
Required:
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2–7 years of software engineering experience (not a new grad — some professional engineering experience is required).
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Computer Science degree from a top-tier university.
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Strong CS fundamentals.
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High energy, exceptionally bright, and driven to build fast.
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Proven entrepreneurial spirit — startup exposure or experience in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
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Track record of technically complex side projects or independent builds.
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Comfortable with — and excited by — early-stage chaos and the demands of a founding team environment.
Nice to Have:
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Experience with real-time media, vision or video models, audio synthesis, or voice systems.
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Experience with memory and retrieval systems or agentic AI architectures.
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Proficiency in Python, including typed scientific Python.
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Familiarity with AI-assisted or agentic development tooling.
Compensation & Benefits
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Salary: $175,000 – $225,000 per year
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Equity as a founding team member
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Visa sponsorship available
Location
This role is fully on-site in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be willing and able to work in-person full-time. Remote work is not available for this position.
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