Init Intelligence — Senior/Staff Founding Full-Stack Engineer, Agent Systems

Init Intelligence — Senior/Staff Founding Full-Stack Engineer, Agent Systems Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $200,000–$300,000 + 1%–2% equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: Yes — H-1B, O-1, OPT Reports to: Founders (Isaiah, co-founder, plus a second co-founder) About Init Intelligence Init is building AI coworkers for IT teams: a security-focused product where an agent registers as a governed identity in a customer's directory, requests scoped access per task, escalates for human approval, and drives systems it was never given an API for. The company raised a $6M seed round (no product or customers at the time), backed by Max Altman and Ben Braverman (CRO of Flexport, which sold for $2B), plus a bench of operator angels across IT and security. Init has several design partners today and a founding team of three. Founded: 2026 | Team size: 1–10 | Total funding: $6M seed Industry: AI Tools — IT & security automation Website: init.inc Office: San Francisco, CA Why Candidates Should Join True founding scope: Early engineer owning the product and system end-to-end — workflow engine, identity/authz, policy engine, credential handling, and agent sandboxes. Serious backing, real traction: $6M seed behind Max Altman and Flexport's ex-CRO, already live with several design partners as a team of three. Frontier systems + security work: Governed agent identity, delegated authorization, and secure credential handling for autonomous agents acting in production IT environments. Intake Call Summary An intake video is posted on the role page, but no transcript is available to parse — no intake summary captured. Ask Contrario for the intake notes or key points if you want this populated. The Role A backend- and systems-heavy founding engineering role where "full-stack" means owning the product and system end-to-end. What You'll Be Doing Build the workflow engine for long-running human + agent work: durable state, retries, idempotency, approvals, replay, compensation, auditability Design identity and authorization for humans, services, and agents: principals, delegation, scoped sessions, tenant isolation, traceable authority Build a versioned policy engine (who/what can do which action on which resource, under what context) Own secure storage and use of customer keys, OAuth tokens, and admin credentials: isolation, rotation, ephemeral injection, revocation, blast-radius containment Own the probabilistic-to-deterministic execution boundary: validation, evals, release gates Build isolated virtual environments and dev boxes for agents: reproducible state, observability, resource controls, safe teardown Ship the interfaces and APIs to author, approve, inspect, debug, and operate these systems in production Tech stack: Not specified on the role page. Requirements Senior/Staff, backend + systems heavy Owns product + system end to end IAM/authz, workflow, multi-tenant SaaS Invariants, threat models, failure modes Fast from ambiguity, no correctness trade-offs SF, Mon-Fri in person Green Flags Exceptional signal of excellence in some facet: led an important team at a high-growth company, top competition results (ICPC, IOI), or elite achievement in a sport, game, or craft Top-tier schooling (Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, Northeastern, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UW, Waterloo, Oxford) for a CS/eng degree, OR genuinely exceptional experience in lieu of it Worked at a great company on a relevant, high-caliber team (team matters, not ads) Big-tech backgrounds welcome for the scalability/security depth they bring High agency: former founders, big scope, real ambiguity; early engineers who owned architecture, production, and customer-facing product Red Flags Career breaks / the "eat-pray" archetype (a year off, or three short jobs in a year) Currently "looking for work" / open-to-work with a thin, fluff-heavy profile A weak foreign university plus a US master's used to launder credentials (unless a top institution like an IIT) Only implemented scoped features, built demos without production rigor, or depends on separate teams for architecture, security, infrastructure, or product decisions Role Details Salary — $200,000–$300,000 Equity — 1%–2% Experience — 4+ years On-site policy — In person in SF, Monday–Friday, at startup intensity Visa sponsorship — H-1B, O-1, OPT Employment type — Full-time Location — San Francisco, CA Benefits — Meals in office, health insurance, unlimited PTO Screening Questions None provided on the role page. Ask Contrario whether the client has specific screen questions before scheduling calls. Interview Process Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Culture Screen — With Isaiah (co-founder). Stage 3 — Culture Screen — With the other co-founder. Stage 4 — Technical Interview (~1 hour) — Systems-design focused. Stage 5 — One-Day On-Site Stage 6 — Offer Extended Stage 7 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts. Ideal Companies & Backgrounds Not provided on the role page. Ideal Candidate Profiles For reference only — do not source these specific profiles. Contrario labels this section "DO NOT CONTACT." Henry Baer — LinkedIn (URL not exposed in the page markup) Nicolas Lacasse — LinkedIn (URL not exposed in the page markup) Andrew Gaul — personal site (URL not exposed in the page markup)