Founding Engineer - Generalist

Our client is a seed-stage, well-capitalized AI startup in San Francisco building an agentic geospatial intelligence engine: a natural language interface that answers any question about the physical world by orchestrating specialist agents across a unified catalog of public and enterprise geospatial datasets, delivering outputs as maps, visualizations, and reports in seconds to minutes. It is built for a future where agents and bots ask most of the questions.

The company is hiring its first Founding Engineers to build the core of a deeply horizontal system spanning data ingestion, spatial computation, agent orchestration, and product surfaces. The system is big and there is a lot to build: each engineer is expected to own outcomes end-to-end, operate with high agency, and function like a mini-founder within the org. This is an in-person role in San Francisco, working directly alongside the founder.

• Own modules of the geospatial intelligence platform end-to-end, from architecture decisions through production deployment, without waiting for a playbook
• Build and iterate on core system components: data ingestion pipelines, spatial computation layers, agent orchestration logic, and output delivery surfaces
• Ship production code at high velocity, balancing technical depth with product intuition and customer outcomes
• Identify and close gaps in the system independently, proposing and executing on what needs to be built next
• Collaborate directly with the founder to shape early technical and product direction as the team scales from its first hires

• 3+ years of engineering experience at real companies, with a track record of building and shipping production systems at high velocity
• Full-stack generalist ability: comfortable owning both backend systems and frontend surfaces, and moving between layers as the scope demands
• High agency and outcome orientation: operates without a defined scope or playbook, identifies what needs to be built, and executes end-to-end
• Fluency with the current AI and software stack: native to modern tooling and not dependent on legacy patterns
• Willingness to work in-person at the San Francisco office at startup intensity, with demanding hours consistent with an early-stage founding team

• GIS or geospatial engineering background: experience with spatial data formats, GIS tooling, or location-based systems
• Applied AI research background: a paper, project, or production system that goes beyond standard ML pipeline work
• Experience at a high-velocity startup (such as Mercor, Databricks, Cognition, or similar) where you built real systems under pressure
• Competitive programming signal: IOI, ICPC, or equivalent
• Prior founding or early-employee experience at a startup where you operated without structure

• Location: San Francisco, CA (in-person)
• Employment: Full-time
• Experience: 3+ years
• Salary: $150,000 – $350,000 USD per year, plus founding-stage equity
• Visa Sponsorship: OPT only

1. Intro call with the founder
2. Take-home project
3. Technical debrief call
4. Call with a co-founder or advisor
5. Work trial (for candidates between roles)
6. Offer