Founding AI Engineer
Summary
Build AI-driven social matching and agent workflows for a consumer platform that organizes in-person hangouts via messaging apps, using embeddings, reinforcement learning, and multi-channel orchestration.
About the Role
A fast-growing, AI-first consumer social platform is hiring a Founding AI Engineer to join its core team in San Francisco. The company uses AI agents to facilitate real-world, in-person social connections — organizing curated small-group hangouts for young people, with a growing presence across university campuses in the US. The platform operates entirely through AI: matching, logistics, reminders, follow-ups, and continuous learning, all without a traditional app.
As a founding engineer, you will own two mission-critical pillars of the product and have an outsized impact on the direction of the technology.
What You'll Do
AI Matching & Social Graphs
Build a new type of social graph grounded in real-world interaction data
Match people into highly compatible groups and surface patterns that drive meaningful friendships
Work with millions of data points using collaborative filtering and graph intelligence
Develop and iterate on embeddings, ranking systems, and large-scale personalization
Apply reinforcement learning informed by real-world outcomes
Communication Workflows & AI Agent Experience
Design and build AI agent experiences across channels where users already are (e.g. Instagram, iMessage, WhatsApp, TikTok)
Orchestrate multi-channel agent workflows connecting APIs, third-party services, and the database layer
Build scalable infrastructure to support complex, multi-step AI workflows
Own human-AI interaction design for a seamless, natural user experience
What We're Looking For
Required:
4–10+ years of experience building AI/ML systems in production
Comfort working across the full stack — from data pipelines to user-facing agent interactions
Familiarity with multi-channel messaging APIs and agent frameworks
Founding mindset: you ship fast, own problems end-to-end, and thrive in ambiguity
Nice to Have:
Experience with recommendation systems, social graphs, or large-scale personalization
Compensation & Benefits
Salary: $150,000 – $200,000 USD annually
Equity: Meaningful founding-level equity
Early-stage opportunity with significant upside in a growing consumer tech company
Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Location
This is a full-time, on-site role based in San Francisco, California. The team works together in person.