Founding Engineer Jobs
Founding Engineer jobs are open across fintech, healthtech, enterprise SaaS, and consumer tech, from early-career engineers who want outsized ownership to senior and staff-level builders, with specializations in backend systems, full-stack product development, and infrastructure. Find a role that fits from the openings below and apply directly.
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You've designed real hardware and sat on hiring panels. Now decide what a great electrical engineer looks like.
A pre-seed AI startup in San Francisco assesses engineers on real tasks for companies in space and defense, robotics and advanced manufacturing, so they hire and staff the right people. The product is live with well-known customers. You'll be responsible for how good every electrical test is, working directly with engineering leaders at those customers and with the ML team that teaches models to score electrical work.
What you'll own
- The bank of electrical questions, covering avionics, power electronics and a bit of firmware (circuits, analog and digital design, embedded interfaces)
- Reviewing every question for accuracy and realism
- Turning customers' real workflows into evaluation criteria
- Working with ML engineers so models learn to judge electrical work well
Must-haves
- 5+ years as an electrical engineer, with real experience in space, defense, advanced manufacturing or robotics
- Hands-on hardware work from design through prototype and build (power, avionics, motor control or embedded boards)
- You've interviewed engineering candidates
- You want to build things yourself as a founding team member, rather than advise or manage
- Clear communication: your questions are hard, never confusing
- Working from the San Francisco office, 9-9-6
- US citizen, green card holder, refugee or asylee, or TN holder
Bonus points
- Staff-level experience
- PCB design in Altium or KiCad, and circuit simulation
- Design docs, specs, reviews or teaching that show how you explain your judgment
What's in it for you
- $130k–$200k base + 0.2–0.7% equity
- A founding seat with founding equity, in a role that will grow a lot
- Direct contact with engineering directors at deep-tech companies
Good to know
- Full-time, on-site in San Francisco, 9-9-6
- No visa sponsorship beyond the options listed above Process: technical conversation with the hiring lead home assignment final interview
- offer
When you apply, please include
- Your CV (PDF) and your LinkedIn URL
- A piece of hardware you took from design to build, and the tools you used
- Your experience interviewing engineers
- A few lines on why this work interests you
- Your current location, your visa or citizenship status, and confirmation that on-site San Francisco works for you
- Your base salary expectation, your notice period, and any other interview processes you're in
Does this sound like you? Apply now. If you're a match, we'll be in touch within 3 working days.
RnB Consultancy | Netherlands | 3604 AB Maarssen | KvK 71489703
Founding Engineer Jobs by Experience Level
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Find Founding Engineer JobsFounding Engineer Job Market
Who's Hiring
- RNB Consultancy12R
- David Joseph & Company11D
- deCircle6
- mLabs3
- OpenAI3
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
- Science & Research
- Telecommunications
- Staffing & Recruiting
- Distribution & Wholesale
What Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in founding engineer jobs.
- 3+ years of professional software engineering experience with full-stack or backend depth
- Demonstrated ability to ship production systems with minimal oversight or team support
- Proficiency in at least one modern backend language such as Python, Go, TypeScript, or Rust
- Experience designing and owning cloud infrastructure on AWS, GCP, or Azure
- Comfort operating across the stack including APIs, databases, and frontend surfaces
- Prior experience at a startup, as a technical co-founder, or in a seed- to early-stage environment
Tips for Your Founding Engineer Job Search
Show your zero-to-one build history
Founding engineer roles reward candidates who can demonstrate they have built something from scratch, not just maintained an existing codebase. Your resume should name the product, the stage it was at when you joined, and the technical decisions you owned.
Highlight decisions, not just deliverables
Hiring teams at early-stage companies care more about your architectural judgment than your ticket count. For each role on your resume, call out one or two technical choices you made and the tradeoffs you weighed, not just what shipped.
Target companies by headcount and funding stage
Founding engineer openings at seed-stage companies expect you to set technical direction alone, while Series A and B roles usually mean joining a two- to five-person team. Filter by stage so you apply to environments that match how you want to work.
Apply early to roles that fit
Migrate Mate lists founding engineer openings from across the United States in one place, so you can find roles that match and apply directly to each listing.
Prepare a system design answer using your own work
Early-stage companies skip generic system design prompts and ask you to walk through something you have actually built. Before your interview, prepare a tight ten-minute explanation of one past system, its constraints, and what you would do differently now.
Negotiate equity terms alongside the offer
Compensation at founding-engineer level often includes a meaningful equity stake, and the cliff, vesting schedule, and option type matter as much as the grant size. Ask for the cap table, the last 409A valuation, and the strike price before you accept.
Founding Engineer Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies are hiring the most founding engineers?
The companies hiring the most founding engineers right now include RNB Consultancy, David Joseph & Company, and deCircle, with the largest share of openings in California, New York, and Georgia, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Demand is concentrated at seed- and Series A-stage startups building in fintech, healthtech, and developer tooling.
How many founding engineer jobs are remote?
About 56% of founding engineer openings are fully remote or hybrid as of November 2026, making it one of the more location-flexible senior technical roles available. Backend-focused and infrastructure-heavy positions tend to have the highest remote share, while roles that require close collaboration with a founding design or product team are more often in-person.
How do you become a founding engineer?
Becoming a founding engineer typically means building a record of shipping production systems independently, making architectural decisions under ambiguity, and working at an early-stage company or in a zero-to-one capacity at a larger one. Most people arrive through a combination of startup experience, strong open-source contributions, or a role that gave them ownership of a product surface from the ground up.
Can you get hired as a founding engineer with little experience?
Some early-stage founders hire engineers with limited professional experience if they can show they have built and shipped something real, whether a side project, an open-source tool, or a contract product. The practical path is to have something running in production you can walk through in detail, because founding engineer interviews almost always involve explaining a system you owned, not solving abstract puzzles.
What does the founding engineer interview process look like?
The founding engineer interview process usually starts with a founder or CTO conversation about your past work and how you think about building products, followed by a technical deep-dive into a system you have shipped. Many companies skip traditional whiteboard exercises in favor of a take-home or pair-programming session, and the final stage almost always involves a discussion about equity, company direction, and how you would approach the first months on the job.
Where can I find and apply to founding engineer jobs?
You can find and apply to founding engineer jobs on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings from companies across the United States. Search the listings to find roles that match your background and preferred stage, then apply directly to each one that fits.
See All 141+ Founding Engineer Jobs
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