Founding Engineer Jobs in California
Founding engineer jobs in California are among the most sought-after early-stage technical roles in the country, concentrated in venture-backed startups across software infrastructure, AI, fintech, and climate tech, with demand at every level from first-hire engineers through senior technical leads. The Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego account for the largest share of openings, anchored by companies like Stripe, Salesforce, and Qualcomm that continually spin off founding-team talent and attract new venture formation. The most in-demand specialties in California are full-stack and backend systems architecture, machine learning infrastructure, and developer tooling. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
Find Founding Engineer JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 12+ Founding Engineer jobs
About Dealops
We’re building the revenue infrastructure the next decade of B2B AI companies run on by starting with the most critical part in the revenue journey, deal pricing. Today, sales reps spend hours building their own pricing spreadsheets for each deal, only to discount too much and spend another cycle iterating with Finance. This is a massive problem for B2B companies, as we’ve seen up to 30% unnecessary overdiscounting with customers. Our founder saw this firsthand when she worked in finance and pricing at Stripe, where she has priced over a thousand deals with the sales org. This problem exists because pricing is a black box. Sales teams aren’t trained to make pricing decisions and aren’t incentivized to optimize for long-term revenue. As pricing models become more complex due to AI and the shift toward usage-based, outcome-based, and hybrid models, this challenge is only compounding. There’s a massive opportunity to build the revenue infrastructure for next-generation companies. We’re positioned to lead this market shift as teams are finding out previous solutions are breaking down. That’s why the fastest growing enterprises and AI startups like Airwallex, Plaid, Harvey, LangChain, and Clay are partnering with us to build the foundations of their revenue infrastructure. Backed by $7M from General Catalyst, Pear VC, and executives from OpenAI, Stripe, Slack, and more, we’re now focused on growing revenue 10x and shaping the future of deal pricing.
The Role
We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our growing engineering team and help build the next-gen AI-powered platform for revenue optimization. You'll work across the full stack -- from our core deal pricing product to the tools that help customers optimize their revenue strategies with data-driven insights. We're a small team, so you'll have plenty of room to fully own high-impact products from day one.
First 3 months
- Develop key features for deal pricing and packaging recommendations, blending machine learning with a rule-based engine to optimize pricing.
- Design and run A/B pricing experiments that directly move customer revenue — past experiments have yielded a 10–20% boost. (Dealops is the first to let companies A/B test rep behavior at scale.)
- Collect and integrate customer feedback to drive iterative improvement and product-market fit.
By 6 months
- Build agents that process unstructured, natural-language data to further sharpen our pricing and packaging recommendations.
- Spearhead infrastructure and tooling for admin users, enabling infinite customization through natural language and LLMs which cuts customer onboarding time by 10x.
- Contribute to the future product roadmap and our long-term vision of becoming an end-to-end sales optimization platform.
By 9 months
- Own an entire product or product feature suite, from design through implementation and keep innovating. Like everyone on the team, you'll also pitch in on customer onboarding and support, and plan and lead projects end-to-end.
What Excites Us
- 4+ years of software development experience, with a strong full-stack focus (senior preferred; strong mid-level welcome).
- Proficiency in React, TypeScript, and SQL (PostgreSQL or similar).
- A track record of building and launching scalable, reliable products in close collaboration with designers and other cross-functional partners.
- Experience with complex products that have high reliability and accuracy requirements, ideally in a fast-moving environment.
- Bonus: experience with Tailwind, Express, machine learning, prompt engineering / AI tooling, or previously leading a tech team.
What Excites You
- Tackle complex, high-impact challenges. Turning pricing from an art into a science is a technically hard, high-stakes problem with enormous room for innovation. AI is at the core of our vision — this year we're building agents that automatically generate quotes for reps and assist managers with approval flows, and that's just the beginning.
- High ownership and influence. As an early engineer, you'll own large pieces of the product and infrastructure from day one. Your work will shape both our tech stack and our broader product vision, and you'll make genuinely strategic decisions about how pricing software evolves.
- Fast-paced career growth and leadership. Startups mean accelerated growth. Whether you want to step into a tech lead role, drive product innovation, or architect major systems, you'll be positioned to take on leadership as we scale.
- Shape company culture. As an early hire, you won't just build the product — you'll help define how we work and what we value. This is a chance to create something special, technically and culturally.
What we offer
- Competitive compensation: $140k–$180k base salary
- Generous early-stage equity package
- Unlimited PTO
- Free meals - lunch and dinner on us.
- Free ubers for late nights worked in the office
- Full health coverage
- Flexible remote time
- 401K
- Significant ownership and autonomy
- The chance to work on cutting-edge AI applications in enterprise software
Compensation Range: $140K - $180K
About Dealops
We’re building the revenue infrastructure the next decade of B2B AI companies run on by starting with the most critical part in the revenue journey, deal pricing. Today, sales reps spend hours building their own pricing spreadsheets for each deal, only to discount too much and spend another cycle iterating with Finance. This is a massive problem for B2B companies, as we’ve seen up to 30% unnecessary overdiscounting with customers. Our founder saw this firsthand when she worked in finance and pricing at Stripe, where she has priced over a thousand deals with the sales org. This problem exists because pricing is a black box. Sales teams aren’t trained to make pricing decisions and aren’t incentivized to optimize for long-term revenue. As pricing models become more complex due to AI and the shift toward usage-based, outcome-based, and hybrid models, this challenge is only compounding. There’s a massive opportunity to build the revenue infrastructure for next-generation companies. We’re positioned to lead this market shift as teams are finding out previous solutions are breaking down. That’s why the fastest growing enterprises and AI startups like Airwallex, Plaid, Harvey, LangChain, and Clay are partnering with us to build the foundations of their revenue infrastructure. Backed by $7M from General Catalyst, Pear VC, and executives from OpenAI, Stripe, Slack, and more, we’re now focused on growing revenue 10x and shaping the future of deal pricing.
The Role
We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our growing engineering team and help build the next-gen AI-powered platform for revenue optimization. You'll work across the full stack -- from our core deal pricing product to the tools that help customers optimize their revenue strategies with data-driven insights. We're a small team, so you'll have plenty of room to fully own high-impact products from day one.
First 3 months
- Develop key features for deal pricing and packaging recommendations, blending machine learning with a rule-based engine to optimize pricing.
- Design and run A/B pricing experiments that directly move customer revenue — past experiments have yielded a 10–20% boost. (Dealops is the first to let companies A/B test rep behavior at scale.)
- Collect and integrate customer feedback to drive iterative improvement and product-market fit.
By 6 months
- Build agents that process unstructured, natural-language data to further sharpen our pricing and packaging recommendations.
- Spearhead infrastructure and tooling for admin users, enabling infinite customization through natural language and LLMs which cuts customer onboarding time by 10x.
- Contribute to the future product roadmap and our long-term vision of becoming an end-to-end sales optimization platform.
By 9 months
- Own an entire product or product feature suite, from design through implementation and keep innovating. Like everyone on the team, you'll also pitch in on customer onboarding and support, and plan and lead projects end-to-end.
What Excites Us
- 4+ years of software development experience, with a strong full-stack focus (senior preferred; strong mid-level welcome).
- Proficiency in React, TypeScript, and SQL (PostgreSQL or similar).
- A track record of building and launching scalable, reliable products in close collaboration with designers and other cross-functional partners.
- Experience with complex products that have high reliability and accuracy requirements, ideally in a fast-moving environment.
- Bonus: experience with Tailwind, Express, machine learning, prompt engineering / AI tooling, or previously leading a tech team.
What Excites You
- Tackle complex, high-impact challenges. Turning pricing from an art into a science is a technically hard, high-stakes problem with enormous room for innovation. AI is at the core of our vision — this year we're building agents that automatically generate quotes for reps and assist managers with approval flows, and that's just the beginning.
- High ownership and influence. As an early engineer, you'll own large pieces of the product and infrastructure from day one. Your work will shape both our tech stack and our broader product vision, and you'll make genuinely strategic decisions about how pricing software evolves.
- Fast-paced career growth and leadership. Startups mean accelerated growth. Whether you want to step into a tech lead role, drive product innovation, or architect major systems, you'll be positioned to take on leadership as we scale.
- Shape company culture. As an early hire, you won't just build the product — you'll help define how we work and what we value. This is a chance to create something special, technically and culturally.
What we offer
- Competitive compensation: $140k–$180k base salary
- Generous early-stage equity package
- Unlimited PTO
- Free meals - lunch and dinner on us.
- Free ubers for late nights worked in the office
- Full health coverage
- Flexible remote time
- 401K
- Significant ownership and autonomy
- The chance to work on cutting-edge AI applications in enterprise software
Compensation Range: $140K - $180K
See All 12 Founding Engineer Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Founding Engineer JobsFounding Engineer Jobs by City in California
Where California roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Founding Engineer Job Market in California
A snapshot from current California openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
- Mulligan Funding2
- Sample Healthcare2
- Buildops1
- Dealops1
- Glint Tech Solutions1
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software7
- Banking & Financial Services2
- Consulting & Professional Services1
- Staffing & Recruiting1
What California Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in founding engineer jobs across California.
- Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical field
- Demonstrated experience architecting and shipping production systems end-to-end with minimal oversight
- Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend language such as Go, Rust, Python, or TypeScript
- Experience working in early-stage startup environments with ambiguous requirements and rapid iteration cycles
- Ability to contribute across infrastructure, product, and system design decisions beyond a single technical domain
- Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure and modern DevOps practices
Founding Engineer Jobs in California: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a founding engineer in California?
Becoming a founding engineer in California typically requires a bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a closely related field, combined with several years of experience shipping production software at scale. California does not require a state license to work as a software engineer, so the path centers on building a strong portfolio of end-to-end projects, contributing to open-source work, and gaining exposure to the full product lifecycle at a growth-stage or early-stage company before stepping into a founding role.
Which companies hire founding engineers in California?
Employers hiring founding engineers in California right now include Mulligan Funding, Sample Healthcare, and Buildops, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. California's density of venture-backed startups and established technology headquarters means founding engineer roles open frequently across a wide range of company stages and sectors.
Which California cities have the most founding engineer jobs?
San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Milpitas have the highest concentration of founding engineer openings in California. The Bay Area leads because of its unmatched density of early-stage startups and venture capital activity, while Los Angeles has grown into a significant hub for consumer tech, fintech, and media startups, and San Diego draws founding engineers to biotech software and defense technology companies anchored there.
Are there remote founding engineer jobs in California?
Yes, and more than most fields, since founding engineer work is almost entirely software-based and can be done from anywhere with reliable infrastructure. About 17% of founding engineer openings tied to California are remote or hybrid as of June 2026, reflecting the tech industry's sustained openness to distributed early teams. The parts of the role most suited to full remote are backend development and systems design, while some founding engineers working directly with hardware or on-site infrastructure are expected to be in person.
How can I get hired as a founding engineer in California with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is joining a growth-stage California company as a software engineer or site reliability engineer and building toward founding-team responsibilities over time. Large California employers like Lyft, Databricks, and Cloudflare run structured new-graduate programs that place engineers in roles with ownership early. Contributing meaningfully to open-source projects, building a public portfolio of shipped products, and moving laterally from adjacent roles such as platform engineer or technical lead strengthens a candidate's profile significantly for early-stage founding positions.
Where can I find and apply to founding engineer jobs in California?
You can find and apply to founding engineer jobs in California on Migrate Mate, which lists current California openings in one place. Find the roles that fit your background and apply directly to the ones that match.
See All 12 Founding Engineer Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Founding Engineer Jobs