Founding AI Engineer

About the Role

This is a founding engineering role at an early-stage consumer social tech startup building AI-powered in-person social experiences for young people. You'll sit at the heart of the product, owning the two systems that make everything work: intelligent group matching and multi-channel AI agent communication. The work is technically deep and directly shapes how people form real-world friendships at scale.

What You'll Do

• Design and build a real-world social graph using collaborative filtering, embeddings, ranking systems, and reinforcement learning from live interaction outcomes.

• Develop large-scale personalization and group-matching algorithms that continuously improve based on real-world friendship signals.

• Architect and maintain multi-channel AI agent workflows across major consumer messaging platforms (SMS, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others).

• Orchestrate a suite of AI agents handling end-to-end user journeys — onboarding, profiling, matching, logistics, reminders, and follow-ups.

• Build scalable backend infrastructure connecting messaging APIs, third-party services, and the core data layer.

• Contribute to human-AI interaction design, making agent experiences feel natural and effortless for users.

What We're Looking For

• Proven, hands-on experience building AI/ML systems in production environments.

• Full-stack comfort spanning data pipelines through to user-facing AI interactions.

• Familiarity with multi-channel messaging APIs and modern AI agent frameworks.

• Experience with recommendation systems, social graphs, or large-scale personalization is a strong plus.

• Founding-engineer mindset: you ship fast, take end-to-end ownership, and stay composed in ambiguity.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $150,000 – $200,000 per year

• Equity: Founding-level equity package

• Visa sponsorship: Not available

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California, United States. This is an in-person role working alongside the founding team.