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Founding Software Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Harnham

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$200K - $275K/yr

Base pay range $200,000.00/yr - $275,000.00/yr Managing Recruitment Consultant at Harnham US -- Data, AI & Tech → Mid-West & South Atlantic Founding Software Engineer $200,000 to $275,000 + COMPANY ...

DGC Search

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$200K - $300K/yr

for Founding Software Engineer This position is provided by DGC Search. Your actual compensation will depend on your skills and experience -- consult with your recruiter for more details. Base pay ...

Redfish Recruiting

Founding Software Engineer

$80K - $130K/yr

Founding Software Engineer Location: Naples, FL (Hybrid - 3+ days in office) Compensation: $80,000 - $130,000 base + milestone-based equity About Us: Our client is building an AI-native CRM platform ...

Anvil (yc X25)

Founding Software Engineer

Manhattan, NY · Hybrid

$130K - $150K/yr

Founding Software Engineer Anvil is the SEO platform for the LLM era. As search shifts from Google to tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, we help brands stay visible and drive leads in AI-native ...

Clera

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$130K - $200K/yr

About the Role A well-funded, seed-stage B2B SaaS startup in the supply chain integrations space is looking for a Founding Software Engineer to help shape the architecture, culture, and product ...

Clera

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$130K - $200K/yr

About the Role A well-funded, seed-stage B2B SaaS startup in the supply chain integrations space is looking for a Founding Software Engineer to help shape the architecture, culture, and product ...

Clera

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$130K - $200K/yr

About the Role A well-funded, seed-stage B2B SaaS startup in the supply chain integrations space is looking for a Founding Software Engineer to help shape the architecture, culture, and product ...

AM Specialty

Founding Software Engineer

Miami, FL · On-site

The Role We are hiring a Founding Software Engineer to own and evolve our full technical stack. You will report directly to the CEO and have significant influence over architecture decisions, tooling ...

RainesDev

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

As a Founding Software Engineer, you'll have end-to-end ownership over projects pushing the frontier of AI evaluation. This isn't a narrow role. One week you might prototype a new RL environment from ...

Ryvn

Founding Software Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$160K - $250K/yr

About the Role As a Founding Software Engineer at Ryvn, you'll design and build distributed systems that transform how organizations deploy and manage software at scale. You'll work across the stack ...

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Founding Software Engineer information

See salary details

$63.5K

$147.5K

$205.5K

How much do founding software engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Jun 17, 2026, the average yearly pay for founding software engineer in the United States is $147,524.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $120,000.00 and $173,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are Founding Software Engineers?

Founding Software Engineers are among the first technical hires at a startup or newly formed company. They play a critical role in building the initial product, setting up the technical foundation, and often shaping the company's engineering culture and processes. In addition to coding, they may also be involved in architecture decisions, hiring, and even strategic business discussions. This role typically requires broad technical expertise, entrepreneurial spirit, and the ability to work in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.

What are some unique challenges faced by Founding Software Engineers in an early-stage startup environment?

Founding Software Engineers in early-stage startups often navigate rapidly shifting priorities and must wear multiple hats, from architecting core systems to handling on-call troubleshooting. The role typically requires balancing the need for quick feature delivery with building scalable, maintainable code. Close collaboration with co-founders and other early team members is essential, as decisions made at this stage have a lasting impact on the product and company culture. Adaptability, strong communication, and ownership are key, as resource constraints and ambiguity are common.

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

AspectFounding Software EngineerSoftware Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's or higher in CS or related field; startup experience often preferredBachelor's degree in CS or related field; entry to mid-level experience
Work EnvironmentEarly-stage startup, high responsibility, flexible rolesEstablished companies or startups, structured teams, defined roles
Employer & Industry UsageFounding teams of startups, tech companiesTech firms, corporations, startups
Search & Comparison IntentUnderstanding startup roles, early-stage responsibilitiesStandard software development roles, career progression

The main difference is that a Founding Software Engineer is an early team member in a startup, often taking on broader responsibilities and helping shape the company's technical foundation. A Software Engineer typically works within established teams on specific projects, with more defined roles and responsibilities.

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

To thrive as a Founding Software Engineer, you need deep expertise in software architecture, full-stack development, and problem-solving, often demonstrated by a strong technical background and relevant degrees. Familiarity with cloud platforms, version control systems (like Git), and modern programming languages or frameworks is essential, along with startup exposure or experience. Initiative, adaptability, and outstanding communication are crucial soft skills for shaping the product vision and collaborating in a small, fast-moving team. These capabilities are vital for efficiently building robust products from scratch and driving early-stage company growth.
More about Founding Software Engineer jobs
What cities are hiring for Founding Software Engineer jobs? Cities with the most Founding Software Engineer job openings:
What states have the most Founding Software Engineer jobs? States with the most job openings for Founding Software Engineer jobs include:
What job categories do people searching Founding Software Engineer jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Founding Software Engineer jobs are:
Founding Software Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Founding Software Engineer job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 13% Internship, and 87% Full Time. Highlights an 74% In-person, 13% Hybrid, and 13% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $147,524 per year, or $70.9 per hour.

Founding Software Engineer

RainesDev

San Francisco, CA • Hybrid

Other

Posted 18 days ago

Job description

Founding Software Engineer

As a Founding Software Engineer, you'll have end-to-end ownership over projects pushing the frontier of AI evaluation. This isn't a narrow role. One week you might prototype a new RL environment from a research paper, the next you'll deploy distributed experiments on Kubernetes, and the week after you'll improve Next.js dashboards or build Kafka pipelines for annotator analytics. One of your first projects will be designing and scaling an AI interviewer platform to handle tens of thousands of interviews monthly. Requirements 0 - 3 years of experience as a full stack SWE Design and build scalable systems: RL environments, APIs, and human-in-the-loop platforms Collaborate across research, product, and design to ship features quickly Solve real-world scalability and reliability challenges Contribute to core infrastructure powering data for leading AI labs Write clean, maintainable code and participate in code reviews Benefits Equity: 0.5% to 1% Visa sponsorship available On-site work policy: 5 days a week in San-Francisco office

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