Recruiting from Scratch

Forward Deployed Engineer

Recruiting from Scratch  •  $200k - $300k/yr  •  San Francisco, CA (Remote)  •  1 day ago
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Job Description

 
Recruiting from Scratch is a premier talent firm that focuses on placing the best product managers, software, and hardware talent at innovative companies. Our team is 100% remote and we work with teams across the United States to help them hire.

Founding Engineer (Full-Stack)

  • Location: San Francisco, CA
  • Company Stage of Funding: Seed Stage / AI Infrastructure Startup
  • Office Type: On-site (5 days/week in SF)
  • Salary: $200,000 – $300,000 Base
  • Equity: 0.2% – 1%
  • Bonus: First submission bonus available
  • Visa: No new sponsorships (transfers only)

  • Our client is building the AI operations platform for the physical economy across logistics, transportation, retail, and manufacturing.
  • The company is building AI agents that automate operational workflows traditionally managed through spreadsheets, emails, phone calls, and ERP systems.
  • Founded by Obaid Khan, who previously co-founded Motive (KeepTruckin) and helped scale it from $0 to $500M ARR and a $5B valuation.
  • Raised a $15M seed round backed by Base10.
  • Already has live enterprise customers and multiple $1B+ and $2B+ enterprise deals in late-stage discussions.
  • Extremely early-stage and high-ownership engineering environment with only ~10 employees today.
  • Founding engineers directly influence architecture, product direction, integrations, and customer workflows.
  • Strong product and engineering leadership pedigree from Facebook Messenger, Airbnb, Discord, and other top product organizations.
  • Building deeply technical AI agent orchestration systems integrating LLMs, voice automation, browser automation, and enterprise workflows.

What You Will Do

  • Build and scale AI-native workflow orchestration systems for enterprise operations teams
  • Develop full-stack product features across backend infrastructure and frontend user experiences
  • Build integrations with enterprise systems including Salesforce, Outlook, ERPs, TMS platforms, and operational tooling
  • Design and implement AI agent workflows, automation systems, and orchestration layers
  • Build and harden platform capabilities involving voice, browser automation, and multi-agent systems
  • Own projects end-to-end from customer requirements gathering through production deployment
  • Work directly with enterprise customers to understand workflows and operational pain points
  • Translate customer requirements into scalable product capabilities and platform improvements
  • Ship frontend experiences in React for operational AI workflows
  • Build backend-heavy systems using Node.js, TypeScript, Python, and cloud infrastructure
  • Reverse-engineer customer systems and rapidly prototype integrations
  • Collaborate closely with the founding team on product direction and technical architecture
  • Operate in a highly autonomous, fast-paced startup environment with high ownership
  • Build V1 systems quickly with minimal process overhead
  • Contribute directly to technical decisions that shape the long-term platform architecture

Ideal Candidate Background

  • 3+ years of full-stack engineering experience OR 2+ years exclusively at VC-backed startups
  • Strong product-oriented engineering background with measurable ownership
  • Experience shipping consumer, prosumer, or internal-facing products end-to-end
  • Strong TypeScript, Node.js, and React engineering skills
  • Experience working across both backend systems and frontend applications
  • Experience with AI agents, LLM integrations, automation systems, or AI tooling
  • Familiarity with prompt engineering, AI workflows, or agentic systems
  • Experience integrating enterprise APIs, third-party systems, or operational tooling
  • Strong startup execution mentality with ability to move quickly and independently
  • Comfortable operating in ambiguous, high-intensity startup environments
  • Strong communication and product thinking ability
  • Experience owning medium-to-large projects with measurable business impact
  • Ability to collaborate directly with customers and product stakeholders
  • Strong systems thinking and architectural reasoning skills

Strong Signals

  • Experience at high-growth startups or elite product engineering companies
  • Experience at companies like Stripe, Figma, Ramp, Discord, Notion, Rippling, Retool, Scale AI, Cursor, or AI-native startups
  • Experience building AI agents, automation systems, or workflow orchestration platforms
  • Founder or early-stage startup engineering experience
  • Strong product ownership and customer empathy
  • Experience building integrations with enterprise platforms and APIs
  • Strong React + Node.js product engineering depth
  • Experience using AI coding tools like Claude Code or Cursor
  • Evidence of strong product intuition and UX thinking
  • Fast execution speed and strong engineering autonomy
  • Experience working directly with customers or operational workflows
  • Demonstrated startup grit and ability to wear multiple hats
  • Strong communication and concise technical articulation
  • Background in logistics, operational tooling, or workflow automation is a plus
  • Experience building scalable AI-enabled products from scratch

Compensation and Benefits

  • Base salary: $200,000 – $300,000
  • Equity: 0.2% – 1%
  • Highly impactful founding engineering opportunity
  • Direct ownership over product and platform architecture
  • Opportunity to work closely with experienced startup founders and operators
  • Extremely fast-moving startup environment with significant career upside
  • Ability to shape the future of AI agents for the physical economy
  • Strong customer exposure and product ownership from day one
  • Small, talent-dense engineering team with rapid iteration cycles

Why Join

  • This is a rare opportunity to join an extremely early-stage AI startup with strong traction, elite founder pedigree, and a massive market opportunity.
  • Engineers here operate with massive ownership and directly shape the product, customer experience, and technical direction.
  • The company is attacking operational workflows in trillion-dollar industries that are highly underserved by modern AI tooling.
  • If you enjoy building AI-native products, shipping quickly, solving operational problems, and working closely with customers, this role offers exceptional scope and upside.
  • Strong combination of technical depth, product ownership, customer exposure, and startup intensity.

 

Recruiting from Scratch

About Recruiting from Scratch

Recruiting from Scratch provides recruiting services for companies that need to hire the best talent in software engineering, hardware engineering, product design, product management, marketing, GTM, and accounting & finance.

Industry
HR & Recruiting
Company Size
51-200 employees
Headquarters
New York, NY
Year Founded
2021
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