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Founding Ai Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Navi AI

ML/AI Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

About the role This is a founding AI/ML role. You'll own the intelligence layer that sits at the ... Strong engineering fundamentals - you can build the infrastructure your models need, not just the ...

Clera

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$120K - $250K/yr

About the Role A YC-backed enterprise AI SaaS startup is looking for a Founding Engineer to join their small, high-output team in San Francisco. The company is building an agentic operating system ...

Clera

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$120K - $250K/yr

About the Role A YC-backed enterprise AI SaaS startup is looking for a Founding Engineer to join their small, high-output team in San Francisco. The company is building an agentic operating system ...

Impact Bridge Consulting

Data Engineer - AI

Dallas, TX · On-site

$113K - $136K/yr

The companys founding engineering team is currently focused on building higher-level AI systems, semantic layers, ontology frameworks, and enterprise-scale platform architecture. This role exists to ...

EQL Tech

AI Engineer

Phoenix, AZ · On-site

$125K - $175K/yr

You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk's SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments ...

EQL Tech

AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$125K - $175K/yr

You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk's SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments ...

K1

AI Automation Intern

Manhattan Beach, CA · On-site

$40/hr

AI Automation Intern Founding AI Team Reporting Directly to Partner If you want to move fast, ship ... Proficiency with Claude (Anthropic) as a daily working tool -- prompt engineering, multi-step ...

EQL Tech

AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$125K - $175K/yr

You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk's SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments ...

EQL Tech

AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$125K - $175K/yr

You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk's SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments ...

EQL Tech

AI Engineer

Phoenix, AZ

$125K - $175K/yr

You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk's SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments ...

Hilbert's AI

Lead AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$120K - $159K/yr

We're looking for a Lead AI Engineer who can own the technical direction of Hilbert's AI stack ... The Role You'll work directly with the founding team and across product, data, and GTM to lead the ...

Cognition AI

Applied AI Engineer

Manhattan, NY · On-site

Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla ...

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All JobsFounding Ai Engineer Jobs

Founding Ai Engineer information

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$25

$53

$76

How much do founding ai engineer jobs pay per hour?

As of Jun 11, 2026, the average hourly pay for founding ai engineer in the United States is $53.63, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $43.27 and $62.26 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a Founding AI Engineer?

A Founding AI Engineer is an early member of a startup's technical team, responsible for designing, building, and implementing artificial intelligence systems that form the core of the company's product or service. This role often involves working closely with company founders to set technical direction, make key architectural decisions, and develop scalable machine learning solutions from the ground up. Founding AI Engineers are expected to wear multiple hats, contribute to both research and engineering efforts, and help establish best practices as the company grows. They play a crucial role in shaping the company's technology culture and long-term vision.

What are some unique challenges a Founding AI Engineer might face in an early-stage startup environment?

As a Founding AI Engineer in a startup, you'll often be responsible for both building core AI systems and setting up foundational engineering practices. Unique challenges include balancing rapid prototyping with long-term scalability, working with limited resources, and defining the technical roadmap alongside product priorities. You'll likely collaborate closely with founders, product managers, and sometimes even customers, making adaptability and strong communication essential. This role offers significant autonomy but also requires comfort with ambiguity and frequent shifts in direction as the company grows.

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

To thrive as a Founding AI Engineer, you need deep expertise in machine learning, software engineering, and algorithm development, typically supported by an advanced degree in computer science or a related field. Proficiency with frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch, cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP), and version control systems is essential, along with experience deploying AI models to production. Strong problem-solving, adaptability, and entrepreneurial mindset distinguish top performers in this role. These skills are vital for building innovative AI solutions from the ground up, shaping product direction, and driving early-stage company success.

What is the difference between Founding Ai Engineer vs AI Engineer?

AspectFounding Ai EngineerAI Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, AI, or related fields; experience in AI developmentBachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, AI, or related fields; experience in AI development
Work EnvironmentStartup or early-stage company, often in a founding or core team roleEstablished companies, tech firms, or startups with ongoing AI projects
Employer & Industry UsageFounding AI roles are common in startups and new venturesWidely used across industries including tech, finance, healthcare, and more

The main difference is that a Founding AI Engineer is typically an early team member in a startup, often involved in shaping the company's AI strategy from the ground up, whereas an AI Engineer generally works within established organizations on ongoing AI projects. Both roles require similar technical credentials but differ in scope, environment, and level of responsibility.

More about Founding Ai Engineer jobs
What cities are hiring for Founding Ai Engineer jobs? Cities with the most Founding Ai Engineer job openings:
What states have the most Founding Ai Engineer jobs? States with the most job openings for Founding Ai Engineer jobs include:
What job categories do people searching Founding Ai Engineer jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Founding Ai Engineer jobs are:
Founding Ai Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Founding Ai Engineer job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 94% Full Time, 2% Part Time, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 8% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $111,552 per year, or $53.6 per hour.

USA_Artificial Intelligence Engineer

SQDM Corporation

Bellevue, WA • On-site, Remote

$138K - $182K/yr

Other

Posted 5 days ago

Job description

Senior AI Engineer

Location: Bellevue, WA (Hybrid — 3 days/week) or Remote

Role Overview

We're building a new product in the real estate tech space and are looking for a Senior AI Engineer to join our founding AI team. You'll help turn generative AI ideas into production-ready features, architect and ship AI-powered agents, and influence the long-term technical direction of our AI roadmap. You'll work closely with our existing product stack (Ruby on Rails + React) and leverage AWS AI infrastructure to deliver scalable, secure, high-performing systems.

Key Responsibilities

AI Agent Development

  • Design, build, and maintain intelligent, autonomous, or conversational AI agents to automate workflows and improve user productivity.
  • Implement agentic patterns and orchestration for real-world product use cases.

AI/ML System Development (End-to-End)

  • Architect, develop, and maintain scalable end-to-end AI systems and generative AI applications using AWS AI services and open-source frameworks.
  • Own the AI lifecycle from concept and design through deployment, monitoring, and iteration.

Full-Stack Integration

  • Partner with backend (Ruby on Rails) and frontend (React) engineers to integrate AI-driven capabilities into the core product experience.
  • Build APIs/services that support reliable AI features and excellent UX.

Data Pipeline Management

  • Develop and manage robust pipelines for ingestion, processing, and transformation of real estate datasets to support model training and inference.
  • Ensure data quality, lineage, and consistency across workflows.

Performance Monitoring & Optimization

  • Monitor and optimize deployed models, agents, and APIs for reliability, accuracy, latency, and cost efficiency.
  • Establish best practices for observability and performance tracking.

Collaboration & Technical Leadership

  • Collaborate closely with product, data, and engineering teams to define requirements, validate solutions, and champion AI best practices.
  • Contribute to coding standards, mentor peers, and help shape the long-term AI technical roadmap.

Innovation & Applied Research

  • Evaluate and apply new technologies in LLMs, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and agentic AI to solve complex problems.
Qualifications (Required)
  • Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field.
  • 5+ years of experience in AI/ML or software engineering roles with exposure to production-grade AI systems.
  • Proficiency in Python and familiarity with frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or LangChain (or equivalents).
  • Hands-on experience deploying AI models/services in a cloud environment (AWS preferred).
  • Strong understanding of data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems design.
  • Solid grasp of LLMs, Generative AI, and RAG methodologies.
  • Excellent collaboration skills and a track record of delivering results in cross-functional teams.
Preferred (Nice to Have)
  • Experience integrating AI into web applications built on Ruby on Rails and React.
  • Familiarity with vector databases and embeddings (e.g., Pinecone, FAISS, Weaviate).
  • Exposure to MLOps tools and best practices (e.g., SageMaker, MLflow, CI/CD, model monitoring).
  • Interest in real estate or property technology (PropTech) applications.

Apply