About the Role
A fast-growing, Y Combinator–backed startup building AI voice and texting agents for the home improvement and home services industry is looking for a Tech Lead to scale engineering impact and organizational maturity. This is a high-ownership, high-visibility role that sits at the intersection of hands-on engineering and technical leadership — partnering directly with the CTO and senior leadership to shape architecture, processes, and team productivity.
The company is at an early but rapidly scaling stage (seed-funded, ~10 employees), operating in the conversational AI / voice SaaS space. You'll help define how the engineering organization grows and executes from here.
This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. No visa sponsorship is available — candidates must have the right to work in the US.
What You'll Do
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Manage the engineering team day-to-day: unblock engineers, set priorities, and drive delivery.
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Guide the team on architectural decisions and system design across the full stack and cloud infrastructure.
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Hold final say on task prioritization and delivery tradeoffs.
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Review code and RFCs to maintain quality, consistency, and engineering standards.
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Establish and enforce engineering best practices and processes as the team scales.
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Act as a technical liaison and thought partner to the CEO, CTO, Director of Sales, and Head of Customer Success.
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Contribute actively to the codebase (~20–30% of your time).
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Raise the overall productivity and maturity of the engineering organization.
What We're Looking For
Required:
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6+ years of professional software engineering experience, with recent roles as a Staff Engineer or Tech Lead.
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Proven leadership and people management experience — you've led engineering teams and mentored engineers.
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Strong background in software architecture, cloud platforms (Microsoft Azure preferred; AWS/GCP also relevant), and full-stack development.
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Hands-on experience with LLMs and conversational AI / voice technology — this is a hard requirement.
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Experience working in fast-growing startups or scale-ups and shipping quality product under pressure.
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Excellent project management, prioritization, and organizational skills.
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Strong people skills and genuine business acumen — you think about how technical decisions affect revenue and customers.
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Ability and willingness to work in-office in San Francisco, CA.
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Right to work in the United States (no visa sponsorship available).
Nice to Have:
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Prior leadership experience in a conversational AI or voice technology product.
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Experience deploying ML/NLP models in production at scale in cloud-based SaaS environments.
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Track record of advocating technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders across go-to-market and customer-facing functions.
Compensation & Benefits
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Salary: $220,000 – $250,000 USD annually
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Early-stage equity in a funded, high-growth startup
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Direct impact on product, team, and company trajectory from an early stage
Location
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San Francisco, CA — on-site (in-office)
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Remote work is not available for this role
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No visa sponsorship; candidates must have existing US work authorization
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