Founding Engineer – College Dropout Track

Founding Engineer – College Dropout Track

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Sphere AI is pioneering AI transformation for Fortune 500 companies, delivering in 90 days what takes competitors 18+ months. The founding team in the SF Bay Area is building production AI solutions in week one. This role is for hungry learners ready to learn AI development without a traditional CS degree.

$130,000 – $150,000 per year.

• Ship production features (API endpoints, UI components) that customers use; start with bounded tasks under senior review and scale to complete subsystems.
• Progress from task execution to feature ownership to subsystem ownership, demonstrating independent progress weekly.
• Own quality, testing, and documentation for your domain.
• Participate in customer demos, showing shipped work.
• Complete structured learning modules covering platform architecture, AI orchestration, and enterprise patterns.

• Production delivery: ship features you build.
• Subsystem ownership: grow from working task to subsystem ownership.
• Structured learning: weekly mentorship from the founder with architecture reviews, pair programming, and accelerated learning path from junior to mid‑level capability in 12–18 months.

• Ship production features (with senior review initially).
• Own a subsystem component and demonstrate independent progress.
• Participate in customer demos.
• Complete structured learning modules on platform architecture, AI orchestration, and enterprise patterns.

• Self‑directed learning evidence (side projects, open source contributions; Git Hub shows learning trajectory).
• Currently in college or recently dropped out (targeting those who see AI making traditional CS degrees obsolete).
• Proficiency with AI tools such as Cursor, Claude, or Git Hub Copilot and can articulate how you used them to build something.

• Familiarity with one backend language and one frontend framework.
• Shipped a personal project to production (even small scale).
• Participation in hackathons or competitions showing competitive drive.

• Universities lag but we make you production‑ready in 6 months through hands‑on building with AI assistance and founder mentorship.
• AI‑native from day one: mastery of Claude Code, Cursor, and next‑gen orchestrators.
• Weekly demos, daily code reviews, direct founder mentorship compress learning into months; become the engineer you’d be in 5 years at a traditional company in 18 months here.

• Competitive salary ($130k–$150k) + meaningful founding‑stage equity.
• Medical, dental, vision covered 100% for employee and dependents.
• SF Bay Area headquarters (in‑person).

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Sphere is an equal‑opportunity employer. We value learning speed, ownership and kindness above all. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds.

• Resume or portfolio highlighting what you have built.
• Cover letter addressing: "Why are you leaving/skipping college for AI?"
• Link to side projects, Git Hub, or anything you’ve shipped.

We move fast: two weeks from application to offer for strong candidates.

Internship

Full‑time

Engineering and Information Technology

Technology, Information and Internet