Founding Product Engineer (0->1 Role)

Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a specialized talent firm dedicated to helping companies build exceptional teams. We partner closely with our clients to deeply understand their needs, then connect them with top-tier candidates who are not only highly skilled but also the right fit for the company’s culture and vision. Our mission is simple: place the best people in the right roles to drive long-term success for both clients and candidates.

https://www.recruitingfromscratch.com/

Founding Product Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA

Company Stage of Funding: Seed (YC-backed)

Office Type: Onsite (5 Days a Week)

Salary: $140,000 - $200,000 base salary

Company Description

We’re representing a well-funded, early-stage software startup building best-in-class tools that help engineering teams move faster and work more effectively. Backed by top-tier investors and Y Combinator, the company is growing quickly and already works with a strong roster of modern, high-performing technology companies.

The founding team brings deep experience from prior startups and high-growth environments, and the culture is highly technical, execution-driven, and customer-obsessed. This is an opportunity to join early and help shape both the product and the engineering culture from the ground up.

What You Will Do

As a Founding Product Engineer, you will own the full lifecycle of building product features that customers genuinely want and use. This is a true 0→1 role with significant autonomy and responsibility.

• Talk directly with customers to understand pain points, workflows, and requests
• Design and plan product solutions that balance speed, quality, and scalability
• Build backend services and APIs for new features
• Build frontend user experiences end to end
• Provision and maintain infrastructure to support new functionality
• Ship features quickly, gather feedback, and iterate
• Diagnose and fix bugs—sometimes quickly, sometimes deeply and permanently
• Contribute to technical storytelling through documentation or blog posts
• Repeat this cycle continuously as the product and company scale
  
  

Ideal Candidate Background

• Demonstrated technical excellence as a full-stack engineer (any level of experience considered if ability is exceptional)
• Strong problem-solving skills and the grit to push through hard technical challenges
• Pragmatic engineering judgment, knowing when to move fast and when to slow down
• Empathy for users and a genuine desire to understand customer pain points
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Comfort operating in a fast-paced startup environment where priorities evolve quickly
• High personal drive and motivation to continually improve as an engineer
  
  

Preferred

• Experience as a founding engineer, early startup employee, or founder
• Background at a top-tier tech company or high-growth startup (internships acceptable for new grads)
• Experience with React and TypeScript on the frontend
• Experience with Go and/or Python on the backend
• Interest in engineering productivity, developer tools, or workflow optimization
• Solid (not necessarily perfect) product design sensibilities
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or related field from a top university
  
  

Compensation and Benefits and Other Things

• Base Salary: $140,000 - $200,000
• Equity: 0.1% - 0.25% ownership
• Visa Sponsorship: TN visa sponsorship available
• Office: Full-time, onsite role in Chinatown, San Francisco
• Team: Small, highly technical founding team with direct ownership over product decisions
• Impact: Opportunity to shape a core developer product used by engineering teams at scale
  
  

https://www.recruitingfromscratch.com/