Tech Lead, AI Engineer (Applied​/Software)

About the Role

A fast-growing, seed-funded conversational AI startup — backed by Y Combinator and other top-tier investors — is hiring a Tech Lead to scale its engineering team and operations. The company builds voice and text AI agents that automate customer service, lead qualification, appointment scheduling, and operational workflows for businesses in the home improvement and related industries.

This is a high-ownership role that sits at the intersection of hands-on engineering and technical leadership. You'll partner closely with the CTO and senior leadership to drive architecture, team productivity, and delivery — while remaining an active contributor to the codebase (~20–30% of your time). The role is on-site in either New York City, NY or San Francisco, CA
.

• Manage the engineering team day-to-day, removing blockers and keeping delivery on track.

• Guide architectural decisions and system design across the product.

• Own task prioritization and delivery tradeoffs with final say on engineering decisions.

• Review code and RFCs to maintain quality, consistency, and engineering standards.

• Establish and enforce engineering best practices, processes, and operational workflows.

• Serve as a technical liaison and thought partner to executive and cross-functional leadership (CEO, CTO, Sales, Customer Success).

• Contribute actively to the production codebase alongside your leadership responsibilities.

• Raise the overall productivity and maturity of the engineering organization.

Must-haves (deal breakers apply):

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, with the most recent role as a Staff Engineer or Tech Lead.

• Proven experience managing an engineering team of 4+ members with day-to-day operational responsibility.

• Hands-on experience designing software architecture and building production full-stack applications integrated with LLMs.

• Hands-on experience with conversational AI and/or voice AI technology, including NLP/LLM applications.

• Production experience deploying and managing cloud-based applications —
  Microsoft Azure experience strongly preferred.

• Demonstrated ability to own engineering roadmap execution and technical prioritization.

• Strong cross-functional communication skills, including the ability to advocate technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders.

• Experience in fast-growing startups or scale-ups; comfortable shipping under pressure.

• US work authorization required — no visa sponsorship available.

Nice-to-have:

• Prior leadership experience at a conversational AI, voice AI, or AI agent company.

• Familiarity with the home improvement, real estate, healthcare, insurance, or airline verticals.

• Experience collaborating with distributed teams across North American and European time zones.

• Strong business acumen with a clear sense of how technical decisions impact revenue and customer outcomes.

• Salary: $220,000 – $250,000 annually

• Competitive equity package at an early-stage, well-funded company

• On-site role — candidates must be willing and able to work in-office in New York City, NY or San Francisco, CA
  .

• No fully remote option available for this position.