Job description

Founding Senior / Staff Engineer Build the company. Shape the technology. Solve problems that don't have playbooks. Our client's early stage startup is building something ambitious - Observability using a single prompt - for which they are looking for exceptional engineers who want to be foundational to the company—not just another engineer on the team. As a Founding Engineer, you won't be boxed into backend, frontend, infra, or support. You'll go wherever the hardest and most interesting problems are. As the company grows, you'll have the freedom—and responsibility—to move across the stack, tackle problems you're uniquely good at, and help define how we build the company. There are no artificial roadblocks. No waiting three quarters for permission to fix something. If you see a better way, you'll have the opportunity to build it. What you'll work on • Compress instrumentation onboarding from days of hands-on work to minutes. • Scale the telemetry engine into the petabytes. • Collapse latency from minutes to seconds. • Build systems that operate at massive scale and reliability. • Use AI to solve complex, ambiguous engineering problems. • Develop tooling that fundamentally changes how developers understand and operate their systems. • Move seamlessly between product, infrastructure, developer tooling, and whatever problem matters most that week. You won't be handed a narrowly defined job description. Our client will figure out where your highest-leverage skills, curiosity, and energy can create the most impact—and keep you there. Who you are Our client is looking for engineers operating at a Senior / Staff level who are comfortable with significant autonomy and ambiguity. You likely have: • Start-up experience is a must (Currently at a venture-backed pre-IPO AI company that has raised Series A or later). Previously worked at a top, well-known technology company (Palantir, Affirm, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Stripe, Databricks, Scale AI, Uber, Airbnb, or similar) • 4+ years of total experience with 1+ years of hands-on experience using AI to solve complex, unstructured problems. Experience applying AI to developer tooling is a major plus. • Level 3 autonomy — you can take an ambiguous problem, define the approach, and drive it to completion without needing constant direction. • Preferred computer science/engineering background from top engineering college • Strong systems and software engineering fundamentals. • The ability to move between levels of abstraction—from architecture to implementation to production debugging. • Exceptional communication skills. You can take an incredibly complex technical problem and explain it simply enough that the entire team can make a good decision. • A demonstrated edge—something you do exceptionally well that makes you unusually effective. Most importantly, you're someone who gets energized by problems that haven't been solved before. Why join now? You'll have an opportunity that becomes increasingly rare as companies grow: • Our client has raised $10M from investors including Khosla Ventures, Max Levchin, The House Fund, and South Park Commons, along with other leading angels, to bring this technology to the world. • The product is already being used by teams at GPTZero, Perplexity, Orb, and Together AI, who have experienced the difference firsthand. • You can help define the product, architecture, engineering culture, and company itself. • You'll work directly with the founding team, have enormous ownership, and see the results of your work immediately. We're early—but we're not starting from zero. Compensation • Salary: $250,000–$400,000 • Equity: 0.25%–2% We believe founding engineers should participate meaningfully in the upside they help create. Relocation Need to relocate? We'll help make it happen. • Flights • 2 weeks of temporary housing near the office • Up to $10k for miscellaneous relocation expenses, such as lease-break costs Our Interview Process We respect your time and move quickly. • 30-minute conversation to get to know you and tell you more about the company. • 45-minute Technical interview-1 • 45-minute Technical interview-2 • On-site — 9:00 AM–3:00 PM. Typically Tuesday or Thursday. Flights and hotel paid for candidates if needed. • Offer. For strong candidates, offers typically go out the same day as the on-site, within 24 hours. Come help us build the company—and solve problems that nobody has solved

Requirements

Must-haves

Founding Senior / Staff Engineer
Build the company. Shape the technology. Solve problems that don't have playbooks.
As a Founding Engineer, you won't be boxed into backend, frontend, infra, or support. You'll go wherever the hardest and most interesting problems are.
What you'll work on
Compress instrumentation onboarding from days of hands-on work to minutes.
Scale the telemetry engine into the petabytes.
Collapse latency from minutes to seconds.
Build systems that operate at massive scale and reliability.
Use AI to solve complex, ambiguous engineering problems.
Develop tooling that fundamentally changes how developers understand and operate their systems.
Move seamlessly between product, infrastructure, developer tooling, and whatever problem matters most that week.
You won't be handed a narrowly defined job description. Our client will figure out where your highest-leverage skills, curiosity, and energy can create the most impact—and keep you there.
Our client is looking for engineers operating at a Senior / Staff level who are comfortable with significant autonomy and ambiguity. You likely have:
4+ years of total experience with 1+ years of hands-on experience using AI to solve complex, unstructured problems. Experience applying AI to developer tooling is a major plus.
Level 3 autonomy — you can take an ambiguous problem, define the approach, and drive it to completion without needing constant direction.
Strong systems and software engineering fundamentals.
The ability to move between levels of abstraction—from architecture to implementation to production debugging.
Exceptional communication skills. You can take an incredibly complex technical problem and explain it simply enough that the entire team can make a good decision.
A demonstrated edge—something you do exceptionally well that makes you unusually effective.
Most importantly, you're someone who gets energized by problems that haven't been solved before.
Why join now?
You'll have an opportunity that becomes increasingly rare as companies grow:
Our client has raised $10M from investors including Khosla Ventures, Max Levchin, The House Fund, and South Park Commons, along with other leading angels, to bring this technology to the world.

Nice-to-haves

Preferred computer science/engineering background from top engineering college

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

goai

Platform: manatal
Effort: medium