Founding Software Engineer

About the Role A fast-growing, Y Combinator–backed insurtech startup (Seed stage) is hiring a Founding Software Engineer to take true end-to-end ownership of the core platform powering its AI agents — infrastructure already live with major insurance carriers and scaling rapidly. This is a high-agency, zero-hand-holding role on a small (sub-10-person) team where you design systems, orchestrate AI agents, and ship production code on a weekly cycle. The company builds AI-powered agents that automate complex claims operations — including intake, status management, third-party outreach, and document parsing — for carriers, TPAs, and their partners across Workers' Comp, P&C, and Health insurance. The platform handles both inbound and outbound voice, email, and file-based workflows in a regulated, security-sensitive environment. What You'll Do Own entire platform components end-to-end — from evaluation pipelines and model reliability to document parsing and agent execution infrastructure. Build and maintain reliability systems: retries, circuit breakers, failover, observability, and canary deployments. Design and ship an eval platform that catches regressions before customers do, including per-run evals and automated regression detection. Collaborate closely with forward-deployed engineers to rapidly spec, build, and ship solutions surfaced directly from customer pain points. Shape developer platform tooling, CI/CD workflows, and coding agent integrations to unlock team velocity. What We're Looking For Must-haves: TypeScript and SQL as primary production languages — clearly evidenced on resume or GitHub. 4+ years of software engineering experience; 3+ years owning a core platform component end-to-end at a VC-backed startup with measurable business outcomes. Hands-on AWS (or GCP) experience in a production environment. Startup experience (Seed–Series B) with demonstrated end-to-end platform ownership — not just feature contributions. Experience in a regulated or security-sensitive environment ( fintech, insurtech, or healthtech ) where auditability and traceability were hard requirements. Proven backend expertise: REST APIs, PostgreSQL, vector databases, Docker, and system architecture. A public artifact (GitHub, personal site, or published technical content) showing genuine engineering interest outside day-to-day employment. US work authorization required — no visa sponsorship available. Nice-to-haves: Shipped AI/LLM agent infrastructure including tool orchestration, evaluation pipelines, or session lifecycle management. Previous product experience: PM internship, PM role, or product-focused engineering work. Experience with voice AI systems, insurance platforms, or fintech infrastructure. Founded a company or was an early engineer (first 10) with multi-year tenure. Technical degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent. Compensation & Benefits Salary: $165,000 – $270,000 USD annually (commensurate with experience). Early-stage equity in a well-funded, high-growth startup. Location This is an on-site role based in Los Angeles, CA . Candidates in New York City, NY or San Francisco, CA may also be considered. Relocation support available for strong candidates.