Founding AI Engineer
About the Role
Join a small, in-person founding team in San Francisco building an AI-first platform that organises real-world social connections for young people — think curated small-group hangouts powered end-to-end by AI agents. As a Founding AI Engineer, you'll own two of the most technically challenging and impactful areas of the product: AI-driven matching and social graphs, and multi-channel AI agent experiences.
This is a ground-floor opportunity with significant equity upside at a company solving a genuine human problem — loneliness among Gen Z — at growing scale across US university campuses.
No visa sponsorship is available. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States without employer sponsorship.
What You'll Do
AI Matching & Social Graphs
Design and build a novel social graph derived from real-world interaction data, processing millions of data points
Develop collaborative filtering, graph embeddings, and ranking systems to match people into highly compatible groups
Apply reinforcement learning from real-world outcomes to continuously improve personalization
Discover patterns in interaction data that correlate with meaningful, lasting friendships
Multi-Channel AI Agent Experiences
Architect and build agent workflows that operate natively across messaging platforms (Instagram, iMessage, WhatsApp, TikTok, and others)
Integrate and orchestrate multiple AI agents, third-party APIs, and the data layer into a seamless user experience
Design scalable, production-grade infrastructure to support AI workloads and multi-channel agent orchestration
Craft human-AI interactions that feel natural, reliable, and effortless at scale
What We're Looking For
Required
Up to 4 years of hands-on experience building AI/ML systems in production (quality of experience matters more than tenure)
Proven experience with large-scale AI/ML for matching or personalization — collaborative filtering, graph-based representations, embeddings, and ranking
Experience deploying reinforcement learning models from real-world feedback signals
Hands-on experience designing and implementing multi-channel agent experiences with API orchestration across social/messaging platforms
Proficiency in production-grade software engineering: distributed systems, scalable data pipelines, cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills — comfortable working closely with product, design, and data science
Founding mindset: you ship fast, own problems end-to-end, and thrive in ambiguity
Must be eligible to work in the United States without visa sponsorship
Nice to Have
Prior experience with recommendation systems, social graphs, or large-scale personalization platforms
Familiarity with multi-agent orchestration frameworks
Experience at an early-stage startup or in a founding engineer capacity
Compensation & Benefits
Salary: $150,000 – $200,000 per year
Equity: Meaningful founding-level equity
Early-stage company with significant upside potential
Location
This is a fully on-site role based in San Francisco, California. The team works together in person — no remote or hybrid option.