San Francisco, CA (Financial District) · On-site (5 days) · Full-time Compensation: $225,000–$300,000 + 0%–3% equity

About the Company

Our client is a San Francisco–based AI startup that helps enterprises move AI from prototype to reliable production by embedding with customers, auditing their operations, and building the agents, integrations, and workflows needed to transform how those businesses run. A flagship surface is an "AI FDE" — an agent built to do the work of a forward-deployed engineer: scoping complex problems, writing and integrating code, and standing up production systems alongside customer teams. The founding thesis is that the hardest part of enterprise AI isn't the model — it's deployment, reliability, and trust.

Founded 2026 · 11–50 people (Seed) · Industry: AI Tools

The Role

Lead the client's platform technical direction — design the architecture, set engineering standards, and own the build-vs-buy calls that decide whether it becomes a generational platform or stays a services business. This is the person defining the system, not a senior IC inside someone else's org.

Tech stack: Not specified by the client; referenced technologies include agent orchestration, retrieval pipelines, and evaluation frameworks (infra depth — Kubernetes, distributed systems, cloud — is a nice-to-have).

Requirements

• Production AI/ML systems experience: inference, orchestration, evaluation, monitoring
• High agency and an ownership mentality
• On-site in SF (Financial District), 5 days

Nice to Haves

• A real, deep understanding of how scale actually works in production
• Can architect on a whiteboard without leaning on slides
• Has shipped production systems they personally designed
• Strong opinions, easily updated when shown they're wrong
• Visible curiosity about agent and AI infrastructure specifically
• Capable of being CTO in a few months

Why Join

• Founding scope, CTO track: own the entire technical vision and architecture, with an explicit path to CTO
• Build a platform, not features: every client deployment compounds the product, with a 100% production-deployment rate and immediate, measurable impact
• Enterprise access at the seed stage: a direct line to Fortune 5000 decision-makers

Details

• Location — San Francisco, CA (Financial District)
• Work policy — On-site, 5 days/week
• Compensation — $225,000–$300,000 + 0%–3% equity
• Visa sponsorship — Not available
• Employment type — Full-time