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Founding Data Engineer Jobs in New York (NOW HIRING)

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · Remote

$150K - $175K/yr

This is a Founding Engineer role at a Y Combinator-backed seed-stage startup -- meaning you'll have ... Create internal tools and data pipelines that enable analysts to add sources and maintain sector ...

New

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$150K - $175K/yr

This is a Founding Engineer role at a Y Combinator-backed seed-stage startup - meaning you'll have ... Create internal tools and data pipelines that enable analysts to add sources and maintain sector ...

New

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$125K - $175K/yr

This is a founding engineering role focused on backend and infrastructure, and it carries three of ... Strong fluency in a modern backend language (Go, TypeScript, Python, Java, Rust) and data ...

Founding Software Engineer

New York, NY · Remote

$150K - $200K/yr

We're looking for a Founding Software Engineer to join our small, high-velocity team and help shape ... Design APIs, data models, and integrations with claims management systems and external platforms.

Founding Software Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$150K - $200K/yr

We're looking for a Founding Software Engineer to join our small, high-velocity team and help shape ... Design APIs, data models, and integrations with claims management systems and external platforms.

Founding Product Engineer (Client Search) | AI + B2B SaaS | NYC (In-Person) We're partnering with a ... Background building data-heavy or workflow-driven applications * Previous startup or founding-team ...

Founding Product Engineer (Client Search) | AI + B2B SaaS | NYC (In-Person) We're partnering with a ... Background building data-heavy or workflow-driven applications * Previous startup or founding-team ...

Founding Product Engineer (Client Search) | AI + B2B SaaS | NYC (In-Person) We're partnering with a ... Background building data-heavy or workflow-driven applications * Previous startup or founding-team ...

The best person for this role is T-shaped: broad enough to move across AI, backend, data, and ... As a Founding Engineer you may... * Build end-to-end prototypes fast * Go deep when necessary ...

As a Founding Engineer, you will design and build scalable workflows, maintain data infrastructure, and work closely with customers to enhance the platform while laying the groundwork for future ...

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · Hybrid

$120K - $180K/yr

Founding Engineer Package: $120k - $180k + equity Location: New York City (3 days per week in ... data and live customer workflows Tech Environment → Python → Angular → React → Express.js ...

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$175K - $250K/yr

FinTech / AI The Role A Founding Engineer working primarily on the new AI CFO agent, with tech-lead ... A real data moat: the lending business supplies deep financial data, direct customer relationships ...

The role and why it matters This is a founding Forward Deployed Engineer role with direct access to ... Build shared data models, ontologies, and workflow infrastructure that connect deployments into ...

New

Founding Product Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$180K - $220K/yr

Founding Product Engineer Location: New York City (Hybrid, 3 days in office per week) Reports to ... You'll influence API design, data models, and overall architecture to make the entire product feel ...

Founding Engineer - Scend Who We Are Scend is on a mission to modernize M&A and bring efficiency to ... Data Processing: Process large datasets using Airflow, Pandas, and Spark * Web Crawling: Develop ...

Built by ex-Palantir, ex-CTO/founders, and ex-Notion engineers, Outtake is designed for clarity ... About the role We're looking for a Founding Applied Data Scientist to define how Outtake ...

Showing results 21-40

Founding Data Engineer information

What are the unique challenges and opportunities of being a founding data engineer at an early-stage startup?

As a Founding Data Engineer, you'll face the challenge of building data infrastructure from scratch, often with limited resources and evolving requirements. You’ll work closely with founders and cross-functional teams to define data strategies, implement pipelines, and ensure data quality. This role offers significant influence over technical decisions and architecture, and you'll likely wear multiple hats, contributing to both backend engineering and data analytics. The fast-paced environment fosters rapid skill development and provides substantial opportunities for career growth as the company scales.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a founding data engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Founding Data Engineer, you need strong expertise in data architecture, database design, and software engineering, often backed by a degree in computer science or a related field. Familiarity with cloud platforms (like AWS or GCP), ETL frameworks, programming languages (such as Python or Scala), and data warehousing tools is typically required. Exceptional problem-solving, adaptability, and collaboration skills set standout candidates apart in this role. These abilities are crucial for building scalable data systems and shaping the technical foundation of an early-stage company.

What is the difference between Founding Data Engineer vs Data Engineer?

AspectFounding Data EngineerData Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's or higher in CS, experience in startup environmentsBachelor's or higher in CS, relevant data tools experience
Work EnvironmentEarly-stage startups, high flexibility, broad responsibilitiesEstablished companies, specialized roles, structured teams
Employer & Industry UsageFounding teams, startups, tech companiesTech firms, finance, healthcare, large organizations
Search & Comparison IntentUnderstanding startup data roles, early-stage responsibilitiesStandard data engineering roles, career progression

The main difference between a Founding Data Engineer and a Data Engineer lies in their work environment and responsibilities. Founding Data Engineers typically work in startups, handling broad tasks and building data infrastructure from scratch, while Data Engineers in established companies focus on specific data pipelines within structured teams. Both roles require similar technical skills and educational backgrounds, but their scope and context differ significantly.

What is a founding data engineer?

Founding Data Engineers are among the first technical hires at a startup, responsible for designing, building, and scaling the company's data infrastructure from the ground up. They work closely with founders and early team members to define data architecture, set up data pipelines, and ensure data quality and accessibility for product development and business insights. This role often requires a blend of software engineering, data modeling, and strategic decision-making skills, as well as the flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing priorities in a startup environment.
What job categories do people searching Founding Data Engineer jobs in New York look for? The top searched job categories for Founding Data Engineer jobs in New York are:
What cities in New York are hiring for Founding Data Engineer jobs? Cities in New York with the most Founding Data Engineer job openings:
Infographic showing various Founding Data Engineer job openings in New York as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 82% Full Time, 13% Part Time, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 10% Remote job distribution.

Founding Engineer

Clera

New York, NY • Remote

$150K - $175K/yr

Full-time

Posted 3 days ago

New


Job description

About the Role

Join a three-person founding team in New York and help build the full-stack systems behind an AI-native financial research terminal focused on the healthcare sector. This is a Founding Engineer role at a Y Combinator–backed seed-stage startup — meaning you'll have real ownership over architecture, product, and reliability from day one.

You'll shape how the company makes its AI agents dependable through reliable tooling, durable execution, and strong observability, working across frontend, data infrastructure, and AI orchestration. The platform processes thousands of automated research jobs daily and serves institutional investors including banks, hedge funds, and asset managers.

What You'll Do
  • Work across the entire stack to ship frontend features, data pipelines, and agent infrastructure.

  • Build real-time, customer-facing systems that keep users informed as information changes.

  • Create internal tools and data pipelines that enable analysts to add sources and maintain sector coverage faster and more reliably.

  • Improve the tooling and capabilities that make AI agents more reliable and production-ready.

  • Own projects end to end: inspect data, QA and instrument what you build, ship it, and fix it in production when it breaks.

  • First day: Add a new information source. First week: Ship improvements to parsing and extraction. First 30 days: Build the company's core data ontology and the first version of a key product surface.

What We're Looking For

Dealbreakers (must-haves):

  • Demonstrated experience building, shipping, and operating production software systems end-to-end.

  • Hands-on experience using AI agents or LLM-based systems to accomplish real work in production or substantial projects.

  • Experience building deterministic software tools and controls used alongside AI agent systems.

  • US work authorization required — visa sponsorship is not available.

Required skills and experience:

  • Backend service development with Python and FastAPI (or equivalent Python frameworks) in production.

  • Database, data pipeline, and data infrastructure experience — relational and analytical data stores.

  • Experience improving AI agent reliability, observability, or tool design for production agentic workflows.

  • Frontend development with TypeScript and React, including real-time customer-facing features.

  • Experience building parsing, extraction, or data reconciliation systems from unstructured or semi-structured sources.

  • Cloud infrastructure and deployment experience with AWS, Cloudflare, or equivalent platforms.

Nice to have:

  • Capital markets, financial data, or equity research domain experience.

  • Experience with modern data stack tools: dbt, Neon, MotherDuck, Turbopuffer, or similar.

  • Experience building knowledge graphs, ontologies, or structured data models from unstructured information sources.

Our tech stack: Python, FastAPI, DBOS, TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL, Neon, MotherDuck, Turbopuffer, dbt, AWS, Cloudflare.

Compensation & Benefits
  • Salary: $150,000 – $175,000 per year

  • Founding team equity

  • Outsized scope and ownership from day one

Location

This is an on-site role based in New York, NY. We work in person as a small, high-trust founding team. Remote-only arrangements are not available for this position.