Founding Engineer, AI Platform & Cloud Systems

Qualifications

• Visa: US Citizen or existing US work authorization only
• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong backend or full-stack foundation
• Experience building and scaling production systems in cloud environments
• Strong system design skills and ability to reason about performance, reliability, and trade-offs
• Comfort working in fast-moving, ambiguous environments with high ownership
• Ability to collaborate closely with non-engineering stakeholders and translate real-world workflows into software
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
• Founding mindset: thrives in early-stage environments and enjoys building from zero to one
• Strong product intuition with an appreciation for user experience and operational workflows
• Curious, pragmatic problem solver who balances speed with correctness
• Comfortable working across the stack and stepping outside a narrow role definition
• Clear communicator who can explain technical decisions and their business impact
• Excited about applying AI and automation to complex, real-world problems
• High-impact role with real ownership over core systems and technical direction
• Exposure to cutting-edge AI systems in a production environment

Benefits

• Compensation: $200,000 – $250,000 base + Equity (1.0%–3.0%)
• Competitive base salary ($200K–$250K) plus significant early-stage equity
• Opportunity to work directly with seasoned founders with prior startup and scale experience

Responsibilities

• The Founding Engineer will be a hands-on technical leader responsible for designing, building, and scaling the core systems that power an AI-driven document processing and automation platform
• You will work closely with founders, product, and domain experts to ship production-grade features that directly impact customer speed, accuracy, and reliability
• This role blends deep backend engineering, AI-enabled systems, and end-to-end ownership, with exposure to infrastructure, data pipelines, and user-facing surfaces
• Architect, build, and maintain scalable backend systems that support AI-driven document ingestion, processing, and validation
• Design and implement pipelines that extract structured data from complex, unstructured inputs using a combination of AI models, deterministic logic, and human-in-the-loop workflows
• Build systems to measure, test, and continuously improve extraction accuracy across diverse document types
• Develop and scale cloud infrastructure capable of processing high volumes of concurrent workloads during peak usage periods
• Integrate with third-party platforms, internal tools, and external customer systems
• Contribute to customer-facing features that improve intake flows, review workflows, and output quality
• Partner closely with founders to make early architectural decisions and establish engineering best practices
• Take end-to-end ownership of projects, from design through production and iteration

Full Description

Founding Engineer, AI Platform & Cloud Systems

Job Type: Full-time

Office Location: San Francisco, CA

Work Type: Hybrid (San Francisco preferred)

Visa: US Citizen or existing US work authorization only

Job Title: Founding Engineer (Full Stack / Backend-Leaning)

Compensation: $200,000 – $250,000 base + Equity (1.0%–3.0%)

About the Company

Olympia is partnering with a high-growth, venture-backed AI startup to hire a Founding Engineer who will play a critical role in building and scaling the company’s core platform from the ground up.

This is a rare opportunity to join early, work directly with experienced founders, and own foundational engineering decisions across backend systems, AI pipelines, and customer-facing workflows.

The product is already live, generating revenue, and scaling rapidly across enterprise customers in a traditionally manual, high-friction industry.

Position Summary

The Founding Engineer will be a hands-on technical leader responsible for designing, building, and scaling the core systems that power an AI-driven document processing and automation platform.

You will work closely with founders, product, and domain experts to ship production-grade features that directly impact customer speed, accuracy, and reliability.

This role blends deep backend engineering, AI-enabled systems, and end-to-end ownership, with exposure to infrastructure, data pipelines, and user-facing surfaces.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and maintain scalable backend systems that support AI-driven document ingestion, processing, and validation.

• Design and implement pipelines that extract structured data from complex, unstructured inputs using a combination of AI models, deterministic logic, and human-in-the-loop workflows.

• Build systems to measure, test, and continuously improve extraction accuracy across diverse document types.

• Develop and scale cloud infrastructure capable of processing high volumes of concurrent workloads during peak usage periods.

• Integrate with third-party platforms, internal tools, and external customer systems.

• Contribute to customer-facing features that improve intake flows, review workflows, and output quality.

• Partner closely with founders to make early architectural decisions and establish engineering best practices.

• Take end-to-end ownership of projects, from design through production and iteration.

Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong backend or full-stack foundation.

• Experience building and scaling production systems in cloud environments.

• Strong system design skills and ability to reason about performance, reliability, and trade-offs.

• Comfort working in fast-moving, ambiguous environments with high ownership.

• Ability to collaborate closely with non-engineering stakeholders and translate real-world workflows into software.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.

Ideal Attributes

• Founding mindset: thrives in early-stage environments and enjoys building from zero to one.

• Strong product intuition with an appreciation for user experience and operational workflows.

• Curious, pragmatic problem solver who balances speed with correctness.

• Comfortable working across the stack and stepping outside a narrow role definition.

• Clear communicator who can explain technical decisions and their business impact.

• Excited about applying AI and automation to complex, real-world problems.

They Offer

• Competitive base salary ($200K–$250K) plus significant early-stage equity.

• Opportunity to work directly with seasoned founders with prior startup and scale experience.

• High-impact role with real ownership over core systems and technical direction.

• Exposure to cutting-edge AI systems in a production environment.

• Hybrid work environment with a strong San Francisco presence.

• Fast-growing company with strong revenue traction and long-term upside.