This range is provided by HartleyCo. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more. Base pay range $150,000.00/yr - $200,000.00/yr Direct message the job poster from HartleyCo Headhunter | Founding Engineering Hires | Partner to YC & Tier 1 VC Portfolio | Facilitating Growth Company Overview: Join a high-intensity, YC-backed startup that recently graduated from YC. The company raised $2.5M in Seed Funding in December and is ranked among the top 10 companies in its batch in terms of revenue. They are 7 months into product development, with a San Francisco-based HQ and a small, focused team. The company is actively working with enterprise clients and is rapidly scaling its team and product delivery. The team is mission-driven, ambitious, and execution-focused. Role Summary: We are looking for a Founding AI Engineer to join the core technical team and play a pivotal role in building production-grade AI systems. This is a rare opportunity to join an early-stage, rapidly scaling startup post-YC. Key Responsibilities: Architect, build, and scale intelligent LLM pipelines and agent-based AI systems Own end-to-end ML workflows from experimentation to deployment Collaborate closely with the founders and CTO to shape the AI/LLM architecture and product roadmap Top Priorities in a Candidate: Raw Intelligence: Must be exceptionally smart with a proven track record of high achievement (e.g., top-tier school, Olympiad/ICPC, published papers, high-impact projects, former founder, or founding engineer experience). Hands-on with LLMs: Strong preference for candidates with experience in building agentic AI pipelines or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) stacks. This role is not purely research-focused but demands the ability to build usable production systems. Startup DNA: Must exhibit high ownership, grit, and a strong willingness to work in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment (80+ hours/week). Culture Fit: Comfortable working in an intense, no-nonsense environment. While the role may not be client-facing, a good cultural fit with the internal team is essential. Must-have: Python Strongly preferred: Experience with LLMs, agentic AI, and evaluation frameworks (e.g., OpenAI evals, custom evaluation frameworks). Nice-to-have: Basic infrastructure knowledge is a bonus but not a requirement. Interview Process: Initial Call: 30-45 minutes with the Founder Technical Interview: 45 minutes with the CTO Final Stage: In-person interview in San Francisco (travel covered if needed) or a virtual 1-day work exercise if in-person is not feasible. This is an exciting opportunity for a driven AI engineer to take on a critical, hands-on role in a rapidly growing company. If you are ready for a challenge and want to make an impact from the ground up, we want to hear from you! Seniority level Seniority level Associate Employment type Employment type Full-time Job function Job function Information Technology Industries IT Services and IT Consulting Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at HartleyCo by 2x Sign in to set job alerts for “Artificial Intelligence Engineer” roles. Software Engineer, AI Platform - New Grad Perception Software or Machine Learning Engineer San Jose, CA $120,700.00-$228,600.00 2 weeks ago San Francisco, CA $130,000.00-$230,000.00 6 months ago San Jose, CA $120,700.00-$228,600.00 2 weeks ago Mountain View, CA $167,200.00-$250,800.00 6 days ago Machine Learning Engineer (I, II, or Sr.) Sunnyvale, CA $167,000.00-$185,500.00 1 day ago San Francisco, CA $140,000.00-$215,000.00 1 month ago San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$260,000.00 4 months ago San Jose, CA $118,657.00-$177,000.00 2 weeks ago San Francisco, CA $88,000.00-$140,000.00 1 month ago Software Engineer, Python - AI Training (Freelance, Remote) San Francisco, CA $140,000.00-$180,000.00 5 months ago San Francisco, CA $130,000.00-$200,000.00 3 days ago San Francisco, CA $140,000.00-$160,000.00 5 months ago AI Engineer & Researcher - Post-training Menlo Park, CA $180,000.00-$200,000.00 1 month ago San Francisco, CA $18,000.00-$36,000.00 1 month ago San Francisco, CA $140,000.00-$160,000.00 4 months ago Machine Learning Engineer, Monetization Engineering Redwood City, CA $123,000.00-$185,000.00 4 days ago San Francisco, CA $190,000.00-$355,000.00 3 weeks ago We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.

#J-18808-Ljbffr