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.
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.
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.