Founding Full-Stack Engineer – Onsite San Francisco

Overview

Founding Full-Stack Engineer – Onsite San Francisco

Location: San Francisco, CA (In-Person, 5 days/week)

Compensation: $130,000 — $230,000 base significant equity

Visa Sponsorship: Not available

About the Company

Our client is a Y Combinator–backed defense technology startup, recently closing a $3M seed round, building the intelligence layer between private industry and global governments. Governments publish massive volumes of procurement data every day. The company’s AI platform transforms this raw, unstructured firehose into actionable insight, helping companies identify, pursue, and win the defense contracts that matter most. The business is scaling rapidly, already serving leading defense and industrial customers, and is building critical infrastructure for the modern industrial base and national security ecosystem.

Our client is hiring a Founding Full-Stack Engineer to architect and build the core product from the ground up. This is a true founding role with significant ownership and autonomy. You will design scalable data pipelines, build AI agents powered by LLMs, and ship intuitive customer-facing products used to navigate mission-critical government data. You will work directly with customers, iterate quickly based on feedback, and help define engineering standards and culture as the company scales.

• Design and ship backend and frontend systems using Python, React, and Next.js
• Build, deploy, and orchestrate AI agents and LLM-driven workflows
• Develop large-scale data pipelines for complex, unstructured government datasets
• Ship high-quality production code frequently in a fast-paced environment
• Present work directly to customers and rapidly iterate based on feedback
• Help shape the technical roadmap, engineering standards, and early culture

• 3 years of full-stack software engineering experience (approx. 70/30 backend/frontend)
• Strong proficiency in Python, React, and Next.js
• Hands-on experience building at another company with LLMs and AI agent development.
• Willing to work in-person in San Francisco, 5 days/week, with occasional travel to DC or military bases
• Graduate of a top Computer Science (CS) program
• Proven ability to ship full-stack products used by real customers
• Strong interest in defense, national security, and emerging technologies
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity; able to think out loud and adapt quickly
• Builder mindset (Git Hub projects, hackathons, competitions, or prior startups on founding team a plus)
• U.S. citizen

Do not submit a cover letter — write “I meet the requirements” to confirm you have read and meet the location, citizenship, and experience requirements for the role on your resume.

Job Category: AI/ML Software Engineering

Job Type: Full Time Onsite

Job Location: San Francisco