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Founding Software Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

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 ...

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 ...

Loula

Founding Software Engineer

New York, NY · On-site +1

$150K - $185K/yr

The Role We are looking for a mission-driven, full-stack software engineer with 4+ years of professional experience to join Loula as a full-time founding software engineer. This role is perfect for ...

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 ...

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 ...

Hire Hangar

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$7.0K - $9.0K/mo

Founding Low-Level Software Engineer Location | On-Site -- San Francisco, CA Time Zone | PST Role Overview: We are seeking a Founding Low-Level Software Engineer to join an early-stage AI video ...

New

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 ...

Bronco

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$150K - $200K/yr

About the role As a founding software engineer at Bronco AI, you will be building world-class intelligent reasoning systems for chip verification. You'll own the product from pushing the frontier of ...

Elicit

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$144K - $190K/yr

Founding Senior Software Engineer (SF In-Person Preferred) Posted We are hot Tech Startup building the AI-native intelligence layer for physical operations, starting with trucking carriers. We are a ...

Navi AI

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

About the role This is a founding engineering role. You'll own entire systems end to end - the ... About you * 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of ...

Leap Health, Inc

Founding Software Engineer

New York, NY · On-site +1

$200K - $250K/yr

About the Role As a Founding Software Engineer , you willbuild the AI and automation systems that power Leap's clinical and business operations. You will own large surface areas across product, data ...

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All JobsFounding Software Engineer Jobs

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 Jul 8, 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 July 2026, with employment types broken down into 95% Full Time, 2% Part Time, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 4% Hybrid, and 9% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $147,524 per year, or $70.9 per hour.

Founding Software Engineer

David Joseph & Company

New York, NY

$200K - $250K/yr

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, PTO

Posted 8 days ago

Job description

Founding Software Engineer

Type: Full-time | On-site | New York, NY
Compensation: $200K–$250K + 0.5–2% equity
Visa sponsorship: Not available

About the Company

We're a Y Combinator–backed, seed-stage startup building deployment infrastructure that powers mission-critical software in industries where reliability matters most — healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. Our platform lets AI and enterprise software ship securely inside customers' own cloud environments instead of centralized cloud, replacing fragile manual workflows with intelligent, automated orchestration. Our founding team comes from leading enterprise-software and developer-platform companies, with deep experience running customer deployments across hundreds of production environments.

We're a small, in-person founding team in New York City, shipping fast to a high bar.

Why Join
  • Founding-engineer scope: Work side-by-side with the founders to shape our technical architecture, product roadmap, and engineering culture, building foundational systems from first principles.
  • Hard technical problems with real-world impact: Design distributed systems that orchestrate software deployment across hundreds of production environments in critical industries.
  • Ownership and velocity: Full end-to-end ownership of the systems you build, with the autonomy to ship fast.
  • Strong comp and equity: $200K–$250K base plus meaningful early-stage equity.
The Role

As a Founding Software Engineer, you'll design and build distributed systems that transform how organizations deploy and manage software at scale, owning problems end-to-end and shipping code that runs in production across healthcare, finance, and manufacturing.

What You'll Be Doing
  • Build at scale: Design, build, and maintain highly available systems that orchestrate software deployment across hundreds of production environments.
  • Shape the foundation: Work directly with the founding team to define the company's technical direction and architecture.
  • Solve and streamline: Identify inefficiencies and design elegant solutions, with the autonomy to ship fast.
  • Own complex systems: Debug performance issues across distributed systems, from backend services to production infrastructure.
  • Balance tradeoffs: Navigate engineering decisions thoughtfully, balancing short-term velocity with long-term scalability.

Tech stack: Kubernetes, Cloud (AWS/GCP). Nice-to-haves across Go, TypeScript, React, Postgres, S3, Helm, Docker, and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/Pulumi).

What We're Looking For

Must-haves

  • 1+ years of experience as a fullstack, backend, or infra engineer who has built 0→1
  • Experience building devtools or deployment infrastructure tooling
  • Owned product development end-to-end (0 to 1)
  • Proficiency across the stack
  • Experience with Kubernetes and cloud technologies (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
  • Undergraduate degree in Computer Science
  • High iteration velocity suited to an early-stage startup

Nice-to-haves

  • Experience at a high-growth, VC-backed startup
  • Experience with Go (Golang)
  • Experience deploying and scaling Kubernetes, Helm, and Docker
  • Experience with TypeScript, React, Postgres, and S3
  • Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform or Pulumi
Role Details
  • Salary: $200K–$250K
  • Equity: 0.5–2%
  • On-site policy: 5 days in-office in New York City
  • Visa sponsorship: Not available
  • Employment type: Full-time
  • Location: New York, NY
Life Here
  • Fully in-person team in NYC
  • Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Unlimited PTO and sick leave
  • Annual professional development stipend
  • Company-paid lunch, dinner, and coffee
  • Annual retreats and team offsites