Founding Engineering Lead

ABOUT THE ROLE Lead hands-on engineering and applied machine learning at an early-stage B2B SaaS company. You will shape the platform architecture and technical roadmap with the founders while leading a small engineering pod. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Build and lead a pod of engineers, supporting their growth, performance, and hiring while shipping critical work yourself. - Own platform architecture and make build-versus-buy and infrastructure decisions. - Set engineering standards, code review criteria, release practices, definitions of done, and on-call policies. - Lead technical design and initial implementation of new initiatives. - Assess applied machine learning research and determine what is suitable for production systems. - Partner with the CTO on product direction, model strategy, and machine learning approaches. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Typically 5 to 8 years of engineering experience, with exceptional candidates considered from 4 to 5 years. - Experience in an AI-native company, with technical leadership or ownership that helped build and support an engineering team. - Hands-on experience training and deploying machine learning models in commercial production products, beyond integrating language model APIs. - End-to-end ownership of technical architecture, infrastructure decisions, and engineering standards. - Recent experience personally shipping production software, plus a record of stable engineering tenure. - Strong applied machine learning judgment, including classical methods and current approaches to transformers and agent applications. - Comfort with ambiguity, inherited code, hands-on development, and AI-assisted engineering workflows. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Base salary: $200,000 to $400,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available. LOCATION On-site in New York, New York.