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Senior Founding Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Rockstar

Founding AI-Native Engineer

They're hiring one or two senior engineers to build this platform with them. Given the size of the team, each hire carries the weight of a founding engineer - you will own entire verticals of the ...

OPINE

Senior+ Software Engineer

Durham, NC

$111K - $146K/yr

Senior+ Software Engineer Opine is a fast-growing AI sales tech startup trusted by leading ... The founding team were all early employees at cybersecurity unicorn, JupiterOne, and led key ...

Giga AI Inc

Senior Frontend Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$200K - $280K/yr

... Senior Frontend Engineer with deep prior experience with building functional & visually appealing ... Intro call w/ Founding Engineer (15 min) * Live coding round w/ Founding Engineer (1 hr) * In ...

Zero21

Founding Engineer, Full Stack

Manhattan, NY

Our founding team is no stranger to the complexities of the F&B industry. Our CEO Crawford launched ... Our CTO Soheil has 6+ years of experience as a senior software engineer and tech lead at Amazon AWS ...

Zero21

Founding Engineer, Full Stack

New York, NY · On-site +1

Who we are Our founding team is no stranger to the complexities of the F&B industry. Our CEO ... Our CTO Soheil has 6+ years of experience as a senior software engineer and tech lead at Amazon AWS ...

RainesDev

Founding Backend Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

Previous experience as a founder or founding engineer is highly preferred. Hard skills * Strong ... Simplify is looking for incredible senior software engineers willing to do IC. They should be ...

CASA

Senior iOS Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$164K/yr

Founding Senior iOS Engineer We believe owning a home should feel as special as the moments that take place within them. If our mission inspires you, we'd love to hear from you. About the Role We're ...

Zero21

Founding Engineer, Full Stack

New York, NY

Who we are Our founding team is no stranger to the complexities of the F&B industry. Our CEO ... Our CTO Soheil has 6+ years of experience as a senior software engineer and tech lead at Amazon AWS ...

OPINE

Senior+ Software Engineer (AI Agents)

Durham, NC

$111K - $146K/yr

Senior+ Software Engineer (AI Agents) Opine is a fast-growing AI sales tech startup trusted by ... The founding team were all early employees at cybersecurity unicorn, JupiterOne, and led key ...

Casa, Inc

Senior iOS Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$164K/yr

About the role We're hiring a founding Senior iOS Engineer to help us design, develop, and ship best-in-class mobile applications that deliver exceptional value to our members. You'll work closely ...

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All JobsSenior Founding Engineer Jobs

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 Jun 21, 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 engineers make $500,000?

Senior Founding Engineers in high-growth tech companies or specialized fields such as software engineering, machine learning, or cloud infrastructure can earn $500,000 or more annually, often including stock options, bonuses, and other incentives. Achieving this level typically requires extensive experience, advanced skills, and a track record of impactful contributions in competitive environments.

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 does a founding engineer do?

A founding engineer is a key technical team member involved in building and developing a startup's product or technology from the ground up. They often take on roles such as designing architecture, coding, and implementing core features, while collaborating closely with founders and other team members. This position typically requires strong technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and a willingness to work in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

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.

How much does a founding engineer make?

A founding engineer's salary varies widely depending on the company's stage, funding, and location, but they often receive a combination of salary, equity, and bonuses. Early-stage startup founding engineers may earn lower salaries with significant equity stakes, which can become valuable if the company succeeds. Compensation typically reflects technical skills, experience, and the company's growth potential.

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.

How old are most senior engineers?

Most senior engineers are typically in their late 30s to early 50s, as this stage often requires several years of experience and technical expertise. Age can vary depending on industry, company, and individual career progression, but senior roles generally require a substantial professional background and advanced skills in engineering or related fields.
More about Senior Founding Engineer jobs
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Senior Founding Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Senior Founding Engineer job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 3% Internship, 70% Full Time, 11% Part Time, 13% Temporary, and 3% Nights. Highlights an 87% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 8% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $126,557 per year, or $60.8 per hour.
Founding AI-Native Engineer

Founding AI-Native Engineer

Rockstar

Remote

Full-time

Posted 10 days ago

Job description

Rockstar is recruiting for an AI-native operations platform for patient access - the behind-the-scenes work of getting patients enrolled in assistance programs, verifying coverage, and moving cases through review. Their thesis is simple: AI handles the routine, humans handle the judgment calls. They're in build mode for their first deployment, a patient access infrastructure company serving emerging biopharma, with go-live targeted later in 2026.
They're hiring one or two senior engineers to build this platform with them. Given the size of the team, each hire carries the weight of a founding engineer - you will own entire verticals of the product, make architectural calls that we live with for years, and ship code that real patient cases flow through starting this fall.
They are looking for engineers who build with LLMs the way previous generations built with databases - as a first-class architectural primitive, not a bolt-on.
What you'll own
You won't be handed tickets. You'll own problem spaces end-to-end. That looks like:
  • Designing and shipping the AI agents that run patient case lifecycle - application intake, document extraction, data validation, coverage verification, patient communication, missing-info follow-up - including the evaluation harness, confidence thresholds, and human-in-the-loop boundaries
  • PHI-aware data architecture: de-identification pipeline that strips identifiers before inference, the tokenization layer that maps results back, and the audit trail that logs every model call
  • Integrations with healthcare systems of record and dependent services - as well as the orchestration layer that coordinates across them
  • The production bar: on-call, incident response, rollback strategy, and strict uptime SLAs
  • Working directly with operations, IT, and clinical teams during discovery, UAT, and go-live - you'll be in the room, not behind a PM

What they are looking for
  • 5+ years shipping production software, with meaningful time owning backend systems that mattered when they broke
  • Deep expertise in at least one modern backend language (Python, TypeScript, Kotlin, Go, or similar) and the judgment to know when the choice matters and when it doesn't - they are still finalizing their stack, and you'll help decide
  • Comfort across the full backend picture: relational databases, cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), containerized services, API design, and the operational discipline that comes with running regulated software
  • A real sense for UX - you care how the thing feels to use, not just whether it works. You've sat with users, sweated the details, and pushed back on designs that looked good but didn't hold up in the workflow. Formal design training isn't required, but familiarity with Figma, design language, or having partnered closely with designers is a plus
  • You've built something real with LLMs - orchestration, retrieval, tool use, structured output, evals, handling model failure modes. You have informed opinions about when to reach for an agent vs. a pipeline vs. a plain function, and you can defend them
  • Track record of taking an ambiguous problem, shaping it into an architecture, and shipping it
  • You treat model behavior as something to test, measure, and govern. You've thought about what "evals" means for a system where being 95% right isn't good enough
  • Bonus: healthcare or other regulated-industry experience; prior early-stage or founding-engineer time; Salesforce ecosystem; eligibility engines, document extraction, health compliance or case-management workflows

Geography
Eastern Time preferred, +/- 3 hours.
What this role is not
It's not a research role. It's not a prompt-tuning role. It's not a "wrap an API and call it an agent" role. It's also not a role for someone who needs a lot of scaffolding around them - they are small, the customer is counting on them, and the timeline is real.

Apply