Founding AI Engineer
Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
This is a full-time, on-site role based in San Francisco, California. The team works together in person.
Founding AI Engineer at a fast-growing AI-first social platform in San Francisco. On-site role building AI matching and agent experiences. Salary $150k-$200k, equity, no visa sponsorship.
ABOUT THE ROLE
A fast-growing, AI-first consumer social platform is hiring a Founding AI Engineer to join its core team in San Francisco. The company uses AI agents to facilitate real-world, in-person social connections — organizing curated small-group hangouts for young people, with a growing presence across university campuses in the US. The platform operates entirely through AI: matching, logistics, reminders, follow-ups, and continuous learning, all without a traditional app.
As a founding engineer, you will own two mission-critical pillars of the product and have an outsized impact on the direction of the technology.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
AI Matching & Social Graphs
- Build a new type of social graph grounded in real-world interaction data
- Match people into highly compatible groups and surface patterns that drive meaningful friendships
- Work with millions of data points using collaborative filtering and graph intelligence
- Develop and iterate on embeddings, ranking systems, and large-scale personalization
- Apply reinforcement learning informed by real-world outcomes
Communication Workflows & AI Agent Experience
- Design and build AI agent experiences across channels where users already are (e.g. Instagram, iMessage, WhatsApp, TikTok)
- Orchestrate multi-channel agent workflows connecting APIs, third-party services, and the database layer
- Build scalable infrastructure to support complex, multi-step AI workflows
- Own human-AI interaction design for a seamless, natural user experience
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Required
- 4–10+ years of experience building AI/ML systems in production
- Comfort working across the full stack — from data pipelines to user-facing agent interactions
- Familiarity with multi-channel messaging APIs and agent frameworks
- Founding mindset: you ship fast, own problems end-to-end, and thrive in ambiguity
Nice to Have
- Experience with recommendation systems, social graphs, or large-scale personalization
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
- Salary: $150,000 – $200,000 USD annually
- Equity: Meaningful founding-level equity
- Early-stage opportunity with significant upside in a growing consumer tech company
Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
LOCATION
This is a full-time, on-site role based in San Francisco, California. The team works together in person.