Founding Engineer

Alpha Associates Recruitment · New york city metropolitan area, United States

Founding Engineer | New York City | $150k–$250k + Equity

I’m working with an early-stage, YC-backed AI startup looking for a Founding Engineer to help build a product transforming how home service businesses sell and operate.

The opportunity:

• $150k–$250k base salary + 0.5–1% equity
• New York City – fully in-office, 6 days per week
• Seed-stage startup backed by Robinhood Ventures and leading investors
• First engineering hire outside the founding team, reporting directly to the CTO
• Already working with major US contractors and approaching $300k–$400k ARR
• Significant ownership over product development, technical decisions and future engineering hires

What you’ll be doing:

• Building and shipping full-stack features using Python, TypeScript and AWS
• Owning new product lines from initial concept through to launch
• Working directly with customers to gather feedback and drive product adoption
• Solving complex AI infrastructure challenges, including offline functionality and low-latency data pipelines
• Defining engineering processes and helping shape the company’s technical direction

What they’re looking for:

• 3+ years of full-stack engineering experience, ideally in a fast-moving startup
• A track record of shipping products used by real customers
• Daily experience coding with AI tools such as Claude Code or Codex
• Strong communication skills and confidence working directly with non-technical users
• High ownership, a bias towards action and comfort operating in a 0-to-1 environment

Founding engineer experience, a background as a founder, mobile development skills or familiarity with the trades would be a bonus.

The bigger picture:

An opportunity to join a small, ambitious team tackling a huge, underserved market. You’ll work directly with the founders and customers, build products that solve real-world problems and have a genuine impact on the company’s growth.

The role is roughly 70% engineering and 30% customer-facing work, with travel to customer sites fully expensed.

US work authorisation is required – no visa sponsorship available.

Interested in finding out more? Please apply!