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Founder Founding Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

NxT Level

Founding Engineer

Manhattan, NY

$90K - $121K/yr

The Opportunity As a Founding Engineer, you will architect and build the core systems that power ... Partner directly with the founder to prioritize initiatives and run experiments * Continuously ...

Wonder Group, INC

Staff Engineer - AI

New York, NY · Hybrid

$225K/yr

This role is for someone who has built AI agents and LLM-powered products before, ideally as a founder, founding engineer, or early-stage technical leader, and who is deeply curious about how these ...

Wonder Group, Inc.

Staff Engineer - AI

New York, NY · Hybrid

$225K/yr

This role is for someone who has built AI agents and LLM-powered products before, ideally as a founder, founding engineer, or early-stage technical leader, and who is deeply curious about how these ...

Upside

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$150K - $200K/yr

We're now looking for our founding engineer to help us build the product that can support and ... Ideal candidates have a founder mentality and strong ownership. You're often the first to roll up ...

Clera

Founding Engineer Intern

San Francisco, CA · On-site

... Founding Engineer Intern to join their founding team in San Francisco. You'll work directly with ... Thrive in a founder-paced, high-output environment with daily feedback loops. What We're Looking ...

Wonder Group, Inc.

Staff Engineer - AI

New York, NY · On-site

$225K/yr

This role is for someone who has built AI agents and LLM-powered products before, ideally as a founder, founding engineer, or early-stage technical leader, and who is deeply curious about how these ...

Terac

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$140K - $210K/yr

Founding Engineer Terac helps teams reach faster research breakthroughs through our marketplace of ... Maybe a former founder or lead who is hungry to build again. Why now: * We are at the inflection ...

Clera

Founding Engineer Intern

San Francisco, CA · On-site

... Founding Engineer Intern to join their founding team in San Francisco. You'll work directly with ... Thrive in a founder-paced, high-output environment with daily feedback loops. What We're Looking ...

Upside

Founding Engineer

New York, NY

$150K - $200K/yr

We're now looking for our founding engineer to help us build the product that can support and ... Ideal candidates have a founder mentality and strong ownership. You're often the first to roll up ...

Terac

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$140K - $210K/yr

Founding Engineer Terac helps teams reach faster research breakthroughs through our marketplace of ... Maybe a former founder or lead who is hungry to build again. Why now: * We are at the inflection ...

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How much do founder founding engineer jobs pay per hour?

As of Jun 11, 2026, the average hourly pay for founder founding engineer in the United States is $37.14, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $28.61 and $44.47 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What engineers make $300,000 a year?

Senior software engineers, especially those with expertise in areas like machine learning, cloud computing, or cybersecurity, can earn $300,000 or more annually. High-level engineering roles often require advanced skills, extensive experience, and sometimes leadership responsibilities or stock options in tech companies.

Can a founder be a founding engineer?

Yes, a founder can also serve as a founding engineer, especially in early-stage startups where the founder often takes on technical roles. This dual role allows the founder to directly contribute to product development and technical decisions while establishing the company's foundation.

What are Founder Founding Engineers?

Founder Founding Engineers are technical professionals who join a startup at its earliest stages, often as co-founders or first hires, and play a critical role in building the company's initial product and technical foundation. They are responsible for designing, developing, and scaling the core technology while also contributing to the overall business strategy. These roles require a mix of technical expertise, entrepreneurial spirit, and adaptability, as they help shape the company's direction and culture from the ground up.

How much do startup founding engineers make?

Startup founding engineers often receive a combination of salary, equity, and bonuses, with salaries typically ranging from $80,000 to $150,000 annually depending on experience and funding stage. Equity stakes can significantly increase total compensation if the startup succeeds. Early-stage founders may accept lower salaries in exchange for larger equity shares and the opportunity to shape the company's growth.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Founder or Founding Engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Founder or Founding Engineer, you need a strong background in software development, product architecture, and startup operations, often supported by experience in launching or scaling technology products. Familiarity with cloud platforms, version control systems, programming frameworks, and sometimes startup accelerators or entrepreneurial coursework is highly beneficial. Exceptional problem-solving, adaptability, resilience, and leadership set standout candidates apart in this position. These skills and qualities are crucial for building innovative products, driving early-stage growth, and navigating the uncertainty of startup environments.

What is the difference between Founder Founding Engineer vs CTO?

AspectFounder Founding EngineerCTO
Required credentialsTechnical expertise, startup experienceTechnical background, leadership skills
Work environmentEarly-stage startup, hands-on roleGrowing company, strategic leadership
Employer and industry usageStartup founders, tech companiesEstablished companies, tech industry
Common search intentUnderstanding startup technical rolesLeadership in tech companies

The Founder Founding Engineer is typically a technical co-founder involved in building the product from the ground up in a startup environment. In contrast, a CTO often holds a leadership role overseeing technology strategy in more established or growing companies. While both roles require strong technical skills, the Founding Engineer is more hands-on and involved in daily development, whereas the CTO focuses on strategic planning and team management.

What engineer makes $500,000 a year?

Highly experienced senior engineers, such as principal or staff engineers in specialized fields like software or systems engineering, can earn $500,000 or more annually, especially in large tech companies or with significant stock options and bonuses. Achieving this level typically requires advanced skills, leadership responsibilities, and a strong track record of impact.

What are some common challenges faced by Founder Founding Engineers when balancing technical development with strategic business goals?

Founder Founding Engineers often juggle building the core product while shaping the startup’s overall vision and direction. One of the main challenges is allocating time between hands-on coding, setting up scalable systems, and addressing business priorities like fundraising or customer acquisition. It requires clear communication with co-founders, adaptability to shifting priorities, and the ability to make technical decisions that support long-term business objectives. Successful Founding Engineers thrive by being proactive, embracing ambiguity, and collaborating closely with both technical and non-technical team members.
Infographic showing various Founder Founding Engineer job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 100% Full Time. Highlights an 100% In-person job distribution, with an average salary of $77,249 per year, or $37.1 per hour.

Founding Engineer

NxT Level

Manhattan, NY

$90K - $121K/yr

Full-time

Posted 18 days ago

Job description

We are partnering with a profitable, pe-backed company building systematic trading infrastructure for real-world markets.

Live events generate tens of billions of dollars annually in secondary ticket transactions, yet the market remains fragmented, inefficient, and largely driven by manual decision-making. Pricing is inconsistent, liquidity is uneven, and execution lacks the rigor seen in mature financial markets.

Our client is changing that.

Backed by an established brokerage with multiple years of track record and eight-figure annual revenue, they are building a technology-driven trading platform to bring discipline, liquidity, and intelligent pricing to this market.

This is not a typical marketplace.

This is a trading system... applied to real-world assets.

The Opportunity

As a Founding Engineer, you will architect and build the core systems that power valuation, capital deployment, and execution across secondary markets.

You will own the platform from first principles, including architecture, core services, and production performance, while working directly with the founder to translate strategy into real systems that deploy capital daily.

This role starts at the Staff / Principal IC level with a clear path into engineering leadership as the company scales.

What You'll Own

  • Design and build the core trading infrastructure powering pricing and execution
  • Develop systems for valuation, order placement, and post-trade tracking
  • Build and maintain data pipelines that ingest, normalize, and react to real-time market data
  • Implement pricing logic informed by liquidity, demand signals, and historical performance
  • Create monitoring systems, dashboards, and internal tooling for system health and performance
  • Establish safeguards for data integrity, execution failures, and edge cases
  • Partner directly with the founder to prioritize initiatives and run experiments
  • Continuously improve system performance and decision-making through tight feedback loops

What We're Looking For

  • Proven experience building production systems in high-stakes environments
    (e.g., trading systems, fintech, marketplaces, pricing engines, ad tech, or similar)
  • Strong backend and infrastructure expertise
    • APIs and external integrations
    • Relational databases (PostgreSQL or similar)
    • Cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP)
  • Proficiency in Python or Go preferred
  • Deep experience building data pipelines that operate reliably under messy, real-world conditions
  • Strong system design skills with a focus on performance, reliability, and scalability
  • Entrepreneurial mindset with high ownership and bias toward action
  • Ability to clearly communicate system behavior, tradeoffs, and constraints to non-technical stakeholders

Why This Role

  • Direct ownership of a system that deploys real capital daily
  • Opportunity to build trading infrastructure in an untapped asset class
  • Work alongside a founder with an existing profitable foundation
  • Influence both technical architecture and business strategy from day one
  • Clear path into engineering leadership as the company grows