Founding Full Stack Engineer
AI Talent Now Job #ZR 79
What you'll do:
Ship the end-to-end product experience: smart glasses ↔ backend ↔ companion app that real customers can use without an engineer present
Build and optimize the real-time video/streaming pipeline connecting glasses to the AI core within tight latency budgets
Own the backend APIs and data layer that the glasses and AI services depend on — reliable, observable, and scalable to early customer load
Build the mobile/desktop client for setup, monitoring, and workflow configuration
Stand up the deployment and release path so new builds reach hardware in the field safely
Define product architecture and engineering practices as the team scales — making smart, scalable decisions early that won't need to be reworked
Be the cross-stack generalist who unblocks the team: debug from frontend through backend to device
Requirements
2 - 5 years of experience post-grad SWE, ideally early-stage startup exposure.
Built and shipped scalable systems zero-to-one with real user traction, owning the WHOLE APP end-to-end — backend + APIs + data layer AND the frontend/mobile client a real user touches (backend-only specialists route to Founding Engineer).
Founding engineer (#1-5) OR early startup experience that shipped OR intense-culture company (Tesla, SpaceX, Anduril, top YC)
Big-company tenure (Meta Reality Labs, Snap, Apple Vision, Google, big streaming infra) is a BONUS only when on a directly-relevant team (AR/smart-glasses, real-time video/streaming, on-device/edge ML) OR paired with a builder signal (founder / early-startup / side projects / OSS). A long single big-tech tenure with no builder signal and no relevant-team work is a NEGATIVE.
Real-time video, streaming, or low-latency pipeline experience (YouTube, Twitch, Cloudflare, Mux).
Shipped AI pipelines into a product (LLM/agent integration)
Strong CS/Eng background OR demonstrated equivalent shipping record.
Grit proxies: olympiad medals, USACO Platinum, competitive programming rank, or founded-while-studying.
Full-stack ability on a modern startup stack (AWS, Supabase, Railway, GCP, ...).
Fontend / Design / UX craft
Experience shipping mobile applications (iOS, Android, or strong React Native with native bridges).
Makes mature, scalable architectural decisions independently.
Hacker house (live on site) ideal; minimum on-site 5 days/week in SF