Senior Software Engineer

Founding Software Engineer – AI & Distributed Systems

Location: San Francisco, CA (5 days onsite)

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent

Compensation: $150,000–$300,000 base salary + founding-level equity

Experience: 5–15 years

Visa Sponsorship: Available, including H-1B transfers and new sponsorship applications

About the Company

We are partnering with a well-funded, early-stage AI technology company that is transforming how businesses manage procurement, inventory, and supply chain transactions.

Backed by $20 million in funding from a leading venture capital firm, the company is developing an AI-native platform designed to automate complex commercial workflows traditionally managed through manual processes, fragmented systems, spreadsheets, emails, and documentation.

Rather than building conventional software tools for supply chain businesses, the company is developing an intelligent, automated platform that uses large language models (LLMs), AI agents, and distributed systems to execute real-world purchasing, sourcing, and fulfillment operations.

The founding team brings significant experience in supply chain technology, having previously built and scaled a venture-backed platform serving hundreds of business customers and supporting billions of dollars in inventory transactions annually.

With substantial funding, an experienced leadership team, and a technically ambitious product roadmap, the company is now expanding its founding engineering team.

This is an opportunity to join at an early stage, take meaningful ownership of critical systems, and contribute directly to the company's technical architecture, product direction, and engineering culture.

The Opportunity

We are seeking exceptional Founding Software Engineers to join a small, highly technical engineering team based in San Francisco.

This position offers significant autonomy and responsibility, with engineers expected to own complex technical challenges from initial problem definition through architecture, implementation, deployment, and continuous improvement.

You will work closely with the founding team, engineering leadership, and customers to build production-grade AI systems that automate sophisticated commercial processes.

The role combines advanced software engineering, distributed systems architecture, applied AI development, and product engineering.

Unlike traditional engineering positions focused on narrowly defined features, successful candidates will take ownership of entire problem domains, make important architectural decisions, and deliver scalable solutions with minimal oversight.

The company is open to engineers at different career stages, ranging from exceptional early-career engineers with demonstrated technical ability and rapid progression to experienced engineers with deep expertise in complex systems architecture.

Key Responsibilities

Software Engineering & Systems Architecture

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend services and distributed systems supporting high-volume commercial transactions.
• Take end-to-end ownership of complex technical domains, including procurement workflows, purchase order management, inventory matching, and transaction processing.
• Architect reliable, fault-tolerant systems capable of managing asynchronous workflows, retries, failures, and long-running operations.
• Build and optimize data infrastructure supporting large volumes of structured and unstructured information.
• Make architectural decisions concerning data models, system performance, scalability, reliability, and integration patterns.
• Contribute to technical standards, engineering best practices, and the long-term architecture of the platform.

AI, LLMs & Intelligent Automation

• Develop and deploy AI-powered applications and autonomous agents capable of executing complex business workflows.
• Build entity resolution and matching systems that reconcile inconsistent product information across large supplier and customer datasets.
• Implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, and intelligent product substitution capabilities.
• Develop AI-driven pricing discovery, procurement optimization, and supplier matching solutions.
• Design infrastructure supporting the reliable orchestration and execution of multiple AI agents.
• Integrate LLM capabilities into production systems with a focus on reliability, accuracy, performance, and commercial value.

Product Ownership & Customer Collaboration

• Work directly with customers to understand operational challenges, identify opportunities for automation, and translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Independently scope, prioritize, develop, and deliver features from concept through production.
• Collaborate closely with engineering and product leadership to define technical priorities and shape the product roadmap.
• Rapidly prototype, test, and iterate on solutions using real-world customer feedback.
• Take accountability for the reliability, performance, and commercial impact of the systems you build.

Founding Team Contribution

• Help establish the engineering culture, technical standards, and development practices of a rapidly growing startup.
• Contribute to key architectural and technology decisions as the platform scales.
• Operate effectively in an environment with significant ambiguity, evolving requirements, and a high degree of individual responsibility.
• Collaborate within a small, highly capable team where engineers are trusted to make decisions and deliver measurable outcomes.

Required Qualifications

• 2–15 years of professional software engineering experience, with demonstrated technical depth appropriate to career stage.
• Strong computer science fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, software architecture, and systems design.
• Experience developing production software using Python, TypeScript, Node.js, or comparable technologies.
• Demonstrated experience with one or more of the following:
• Distributed systems and complex backend architectures.
• Data-intensive applications and large-scale data processing.
• Durable execution, asynchronous workflows, and reliable transaction processing.
• Complex data modelling, matching, or manipulation.
• Proven ability to independently design, build, deploy, and maintain technically challenging systems.
• Strong problem-solving abilities and the capacity to navigate ambiguous technical requirements.
• Evidence of rapid professional development, increasing responsibility, or exceptional technical achievement.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to engage effectively with both technical stakeholders and customers.
• Strong product judgment and an understanding of how technical decisions translate into business value.
• A proactive, highly autonomous working style and enthusiasm for building products in a demanding, fast-moving startup environment.
• Ability and willingness to work onsite in San Francisco five days per week.

We particularly welcome candidates who demonstrate exceptional technical ability through meaningful engineering accomplishments, rapid career progression, substantial independent projects, or ownership of complex systems.

Preferred Qualifications

The following experience would be advantageous but is not mandatory:

• Previous experience as a Founding Engineer, Senior Software Engineer, Member of Technical Staff, or Forward Deployed Engineer.
• Experience in early-stage or high-growth technology companies.
• A track record of building products or infrastructure from the ground up.
• Experience with LLM applications, AI agents, RAG pipelines, or applied machine learning systems.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, fault tolerance, concurrency, consistency, and durable execution.
• Experience designing and operating systems that process large, complex datasets.
• Experience with PostgreSQL, OLAP databases, and related data infrastructure.
• Experience working directly with customers or translating business requirements into production software.
• Experience building systems in logistics, procurement, marketplaces, fintech, or other transaction-intensive industries.
• A strong academic background in computer science or a related technical discipline, particularly for early-career applicants.

Previous supply chain industry experience is not required. The company prioritizes engineering excellence, technical versatility, ownership, and the ability to learn complex domains quickly.

Technology Environment

The engineering team works across a modern technology stack that includes:

• Languages: Python, TypeScript, Node.js
• AI & Machine Learning: Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, semantic search
• Backend & Infrastructure: Distributed systems, durable execution, asynchronous processing, workflow orchestration
• Databases & Data Engineering: PostgreSQL, OLAP databases, large-scale data processing
• Core Engineering Challenges: Entity resolution, intelligent matching, automated procurement, pricing discovery, and transaction orchestration

Candidates are not expected to have experience with every technology listed. Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to work effectively across complex technical systems are more important than exact stack alignment.