Founding AI/ML Engineer

Founding AI/ML Engineer (NYC) — own the AI stack at a repeat founder's next company

Are you a backend engineer who's been building agentic AI products and wants to own the whole intelligence layer, not just a slice of it? Have you shipped AI features that real users touch — and cared as much about how the product feels as whether the code runs? Do you want to be the founding AI engineer at a company led by someone who's already built products used by hundreds of millions of people?

A well-funded, founder-led AI startup with a New York presence is hiring its founding AI/ML engineer. They're building an AI product-design agent — software that helps teams replace text specs with visual ideation, learns what great design looks like for each team, and autonomously produces work that matches their style and standards. It sits right at the intersection of generative AI, product design, and collaborative software.

This is a genuine founding seat. You'll own the AI stack end-to-end. So model selection, fine-tuning, agent development, deployment, scaling and all whilst working directly with the CEO and founding team.

What you'll do

▸ Own the intelligence layer end-to-end: choose the right models, abstractions, and systems to take AI features from prototype to production.

▸ Ship AI workflows that help teams explore, refine, and converge on better product ideas and designs.

▸ Turn ambiguous ideas into working systems, then sharpen them with data, evals, and user feedback.

▸ Wire AI capabilities into polished product surfaces backed by reliable, well-built backend systems.

▸ Work across generative AI, multimodal systems, personalization, retrieval, and agentic workflows.

The founder

The CEO is a two-time exited founder and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree (Harvard + Stanford). He was Head of Product at a viral consumer game with 100M+ users worldwide, then Head of Product at a fast-growing AI creative-tools company ($80M+ Series B), and previously founded and exited a venture-backed startup. The founding team comes from Figma, Google, Squarespace, and YC startups. You'd be building alongside operators who've done this before.

The role is hybrid in New York (with a sister office in SF) — 3+ days a week in person. They want builders who want to be in the room while the foundations get set.

What they're looking for

✓ 4+ years as a software engineer, with real work on AI/ML products

✓ Strong TypeScript for backend product engineering

✓ 1.5+ years building agentic products at a startup in the space, and you understand how agents actually work in production

✓ Strong Python with PyTorch or TensorFlow, ideally with LLM fine-tuning and agent-development experience (not training huge models or building heavy data pipelines)

✓ CS, math, or similar degree; genuine interest in design and creative tooling

✓ Local to NYC (or SF) and able to commit to a hybrid in-person schedule (2-4 days a week in office)

What they offer 💰 $175K–$300K base + 1–2% founding equity (flexible by seniority and equity appetite)

• A true founding-AI-engineer seat — you own the AI stack, working directly with a proven, repeat founder
• Hybrid in New York or SF, with a flexible schedule
• A product at the frontier of AI + design, with thousands of early users already
• Highly competitive comp and meaningful founding equity
• Note: TN visa sponsorship available; other visa types not sponsored at this time