Founding Engineering Lead

About the Role

Lead hands-on engineering for an applied AI and enterprise software team, shaping the technical architecture and product direction alongside the CTO and founders. You will guide a small engineering pod while personally building critical systems and helping turn machine learning into production products.

What You'll Do

• Build and lead a pod of three to four engineers, supporting their growth, performance, and hiring while remaining hands-on with key projects.
• Own platform architecture and make build-versus-buy and infrastructure decisions.
• Establish engineering standards for AI-assisted development, including code review, completion criteria, release cadence, and on-call practices.
• Lead technical design and initial implementation of new initiatives.
• Evaluate applied ML research and determine what is ready for production systems.
• Partner with the CTO on product roadmap, model strategy, and the engineering approach.

What We're Looking For

• Typically 5 to 8 years of engineering experience, with exceptional candidates considered from 4 to 5 years.
• Experience shipping applied machine learning products, including training and deploying models in production, not only integrating LLM APIs.
• Experience owning technical architecture end-to-end, including infrastructure and build-versus-buy decisions.
• Track record as a technical lead, pod lead, or manager who has set engineering standards and held engineers accountable.
• Recent hands-on software delivery, strong applied ML judgment, and practical experience using AI agents in development.
• Experience at an AI-native company and in attracting technical talent; a stable employment history is expected.
• Comfort with ambiguity, inherited code, and hands-on work.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $200,000 to $400,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in New York City, United States.