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Senior Founding Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Ambral

Senior Founding Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$185K - $245K/yr

What we do Ambral builds digital models of people and teams that predict what they'll do next. Enterprises use these "digital twins" to synthesize signals across product telemetry, support ...

David Joseph & Company

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$160K - $220K/yr

Founding Engineer Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite, 5 days in person) Employment Type: Full-Time ... Mid-career operator (5+ YOE) wanting Senior or Staff title. This is a founding-tier early hire.

Mintex Technology

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$201K/yr

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer with 8+ years of experience to join our early-stage ... Early or founding engineer experience. Experience at FAANG or other Big Tech companies in addition ...

AngelList

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$200K/yr

As a Senior Software Engineer on Meridian, you'll own the technical design and delivery of major ... This is a founding engineer role on a zero-to-one product with meaningful distribution, regulatory ...

AngelList

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$200K/yr

As a Senior Software Engineer on Meridian, you'll own the technical design and delivery of major ... This is a founding engineer role on a zero-to-one product with meaningful distribution, regulatory ...

AngelList

Founding Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$200K/yr

As a Senior Software Engineer on Meridian, you'll own the technical design and delivery of major ... This is a founding engineer role on a zero-to-one product with meaningful distribution, regulatory ...

Terrarium

Founding Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$150K - $180K/yr

About Leland Care The typical US senior sees seven physicians across four practices plus insurers ... About the role As the Founding Engineer, you are our first engineer and the technical leader. You ...

Noto

Founding Engineer - Senior/Staff

New York, NY · On-site

$190K - $225K/yr

The Role We're hiring a Senior or Staff Level Founding Engineer who will partner directly with our CTO (Steve) to help lead product, engineering, and design. This is not a typical developer role. You ...

Hirevouch

Lead Founding Engineer/Architect

New York, NY · On-site +1

$112K - $147K/yr

As our Lead Founding Engineer & Architect, you'll design and deliver core infrastructure and ... senior leadership role (CTO or Head of SWE). Key Responsibilities: * Own system design and ...

Harnham

Founding Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$200K - $275K/yr

ROLE As a Founding Engineer, you'll be instrumental in designing and scaling our AI-powered ... Mid-Senior level Employment type * Full-time Job function * Analyst * Industries * Software ...

PulseRise Technologies

Founding iOS Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$56.50 - $78/hr

Senior / Staff-level Start Date: ASAP Interview Process: Phone Screen → Technical Interview → ... founding engineer at a startup Experience migrating applications from Flutter or React Native to ...

HirexHire

Founding Sr. Software Engineer

Chicago, IL · On-site

$126K - $166K/yr

This is a highly entrepreneurial, early-stage role for a senior IC who wants to operate in a founding engineer capacity, owning product initiatives end-to-end and helping shape both the technical ...

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Senior Founding Engineer information

See salary details

$59.5K

$126.6K

$183.5K

How much do senior founding engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Jul 13, 2026, the average yearly pay for senior founding engineer in the United States is $126,557.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $104,500.00 and $143,500.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

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

AspectSenior Founding EngineerLead Software Engineer
CredentialsTypically requires a bachelor's or master's in computer science or related field, with extensive experienceSimilar educational background, often with several years of software development experience
Work EnvironmentEarly-stage startups or new company divisions, often wearing multiple hatsEstablished teams within companies, focusing on project leadership and technical guidance
Industry UsageCommon in startups, tech companies, and entrepreneurial venturesWidely used across tech firms, especially in mid to large-sized organizations
Search & Comparison IntentUnderstanding roles in startup environments, founding responsibilitiesClarifying leadership roles in software development teams

The main difference is that a Senior Founding Engineer is typically an early team member in a startup, often involved in building the product from the ground up, while a Lead Software Engineer usually operates within established organizations, leading project teams and overseeing technical execution.

What are Senior Founding Engineers?

Senior Founding Engineers are experienced technical professionals who join a startup at its earliest stages, often as part of the founding team. They are responsible for designing and building the initial product architecture, making critical technical decisions, and setting engineering best practices. In addition to hands-on coding, they often help shape the company's culture, contribute to hiring, and may participate in strategic business decisions. Their work significantly impacts the company's trajectory and future growth.

How does a Senior Founding Engineer typically balance hands-on technical work with strategic decision-making in an early-stage startup?

As a Senior Founding Engineer, you’ll often juggle direct coding responsibilities with broader technical leadership tasks, such as setting architectural direction and influencing early product decisions. In a small, agile team, you’ll collaborate closely with other founders, designers, and sometimes initial customers to iterate rapidly on features while ensuring scalability and maintainability. The role demands adaptability—shifting between solving immediate technical problems and long-term planning to support growth. This dual focus is both a challenge and an opportunity for career development, as it provides visibility into all aspects of building a product and company from the ground up.

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

To thrive as a Senior Founding Engineer, you need deep expertise in software engineering, product development, and startup environments, usually demonstrated by a strong technical background and experience launching products from scratch. Familiarity with modern programming languages, cloud platforms, version control (e.g., Git), and agile development tools is essential, and experience with system architecture or DevOps is highly valued. Leadership, adaptability, and excellent problem-solving skills set standout candidates apart, as does the ability to communicate complex ideas to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. These skills are crucial for driving technical innovation, building scalable products, and shaping the culture and success of an early-stage startup.
More about Senior Founding Engineer jobs
What cities are hiring for Senior Founding Engineer jobs? Cities with the most Senior Founding Engineer job openings:
What are the most commonly searched types of Founding Engineer jobs? The most popular types of Founding Engineer jobs are:
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Senior Founding Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Senior Founding 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 $126,557 per year, or $60.8 per hour.

Senior Founding Engineer

Ambral

New York, NY • On-site

$185K - $245K/yr

Full-time

Medical, PTO

Re-posted yesterday

Job description

What we do
Ambral builds digital models of people and teams that predict what they'll do next.
Enterprises use these "digital twins" to synthesize signals across product telemetry, support interactions, emails, calls, and operational systems into a coherent understanding of each customer. Our agents then enrich missing context, recommend next-best actions, and execute workflows to help teams deliver the optimal experience for every customer.
We graduated from Y Combinator Summer 2025, raised millions in funding, and are already deploying Ambral within multi-billion dollar enterprises. Now we're growing our team to go supersonic.
What you'll do
Develop the core platform to ingest data and synthesize "digital twins", as well as the agentic systems to act on it (eg. Voice, SMS, and Email agents).
You'll work directly with the CTO on all parts of the platform, ranging across:
  • Memory (how do we represent and refine our customer models?)
  • Detection framework (what are the right primitives for building detection agents?)
  • Agent design (how do we turn signals into reliable autonomous actions?)
  • Distributed systems (how do we run 5000 agents in parallel?)
  • Evals (how can we guarantee our agents are always getting better?)

You'll also interface directly with our customers and own engagements end-to-end.
Who you are
  • You have 3+ years of experience in full-stack development with distributed architectures
  • You've built ai systems / pipelines and understand the reliability and observability considerations surrounding them
  • You've worked on systems that process and transform massive amounts of data
  • You're capable of making practical tradeoffs to ship things fast that work, while making architectural decisions that allow us to come back later and scale the system
  • You're good at explaining complex ideas to non-technical people
  • You love moonshot ideas that feel like magic (eg. realtime UX)
  • You think big and get excited by problems that feel impossible to solve
  • You're looking to do the best work of your life and build something you'll be proud of for decades

Tech stack
Typescript, Nuxt, Postgres, Vercel, Claude Code/Cursor
Benefits
  • Equinox membership
  • Free meals, coffee, and snacks
  • Health insurance
  • Unlimited PTO
  • Relocation assistance to NYC available

This is an in-person role in New York.

Apply