Founding Engineer

About this role

ABOUT THE ROLE Join an early-stage AI-powered sales automation startup as a Founding Engineer. You will own a core product or engineering domain, work directly with customers, and help shape multi-channel AI agents across voice, SMS, and email. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own a domain end to end, from system architecture through daily production releases. - Join customer calls, gather feedback, and make product decisions independently.

- Build and optimize multi-channel AI agents, including low-latency voice experiences and persistent conversation state. - Set quality practices for non-deterministic systems, including evaluations, prompt versioning, guardrails, and drift detection. - Work across React and Next.js interfaces, Node.js backends, and Python services. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Three to eight years of full-stack engineering experience, including experience shipping early-stage products at startups, as a founder, or on new product teams.

- Strong production skills in TypeScript, Node.js, React, and Next.js, plus experience building with LLM APIs or agent SDKs. - Depth in at least one area: agent state and memory, evaluations and guardrails, B2B2C or marketplace architecture, or production voice and SMS agents. - Experience making product decisions, conducting customer discovery, and synthesizing feedback without a dedicated product manager. - Python experience with real-time voice pipelines or evaluation tools is valuable.

Strong computer science fundamentals and experience with low-latency systems are also relevant. - Comfort with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and occasional intense periods around launches or major customer milestones. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Annual salary: $180,000 to $250,000. Visa sponsorship is not available. LOCATION On-site, five days per week in New York, New York, United States.

Source listing: ashby_clera