Founding Engineer Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
Founding Engineer roles are among the most sponsorship-friendly positions in early-stage tech. Startups filing H-1B visa, O-1 visa, or EB-1 petitions for these hires treat sponsorship as a competitive advantage, not a burden, because the talent pool is global and the role demands it. For detailed occupation requirements, see the O*NET profile.
Find Founding Engineer JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 19,160+ Founding Engineer jobs
See all 19,160+ Founding Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Founding Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsAbout Innovamat
Innovamat is transforming K–8 math education across the U.S. and beyond — and we’re just getting started.
We’re a fast-growing educational organization with 350+ teammates across 10 countries, building a new generation of math education grounded in research, teacher empowerment, and real classroom impact. Our curriculum, intervention programs, and adaptive technology are already trusted by 27,000+ teachers in 2,600+ schools worldwide — and we’re now in a pivotal phase of scaling our presence in the U.S.
Backed by leading thinkers like Peter Liljedahl (Building Thinking Classrooms), Innovamat sits at the intersection of learning science, product innovation, and execution.
We operate with a true startup mindset — we move fast, take ownership, experiment constantly, and are deeply driven by the impact we create for teachers and students.
Math should be joyful, meaningful, and transformational — not worksheets and rote memorization. We partner with districts and educators to reimagine what math classrooms can look like.
This is a chance to join early in our U.S. journey, take on real ownership, and help build something from the ground up.
The Role
We’re looking for a Founding Market Lead to launch and scale the Illinois region — one of our most strategic markets in the U.S.
This is not a traditional sales role. You’ll operate as the owner of the region, responsible for building pipeline, closing flagship partnerships, and laying the foundation for a high-performing team.
You’ll start as a hands-on builder — opening doors, closing deals, and shaping our go-to-market motion — and evolve into a leader, hiring and developing the team that will scale the region.
Roles like this are rare: you’ll have the autonomy of a founder, the backing of a global company, and the opportunity to shape how an entire region — and eventually the U.S. — grows.
What You’ll Do
Own and grow the Illinois territory:
Build Innovamat’s presence across the region by identifying priority districts, shaping a focused territory strategy, and creating strong momentum in the market. Lead district partnerships end-to-end — from outbound and first conversations to pilots and closing long-term agreements.
Operate with full ownership of the Illinois market:
Take a holistic view of the region — owning revenue, partnerships, and local strategy — while working closely with the GM as a trusted right hand. Drive performance and outcomes with a strong sense of accountability, treating the territory as your business.
Build and lead a high performing team:
Hire, onboard, and develop a high-performing regional team (AEs, Math Success Managers, etc.) as we scale. Set the bar for performance and culture from day one.
Open doors with districts:
Generate pipeline through strategic outreach, networking, conferences, and strong presence in the education ecosystem.
Lead consultative conversations:
Engage district leaders in meaningful discussions about their math challenges and introduce Innovamat’s research-backed approach.
Collaborate to close:
Partner closely with Math Success, Strategy, and Marketing to deliver compelling demos, pilots, and proposals.
Refine the go-to-market motion:
Identify patterns, improve messaging, and help build the playbook for scaling district partnerships across new regions.
Be the face of Innovamat locally:
Represent Innovamat at conferences, events, and district meetings to build credibility and brand presence.
What We’re Looking For
Entrepreneurial spirit: You create momentum from scratch. You’ve built, shipped, or taken ownership of something meaningful before.
Experience in fast-paced environments: A proven track record of grit, resilience, and performance in another fast paced environment where ownership and results matter (e.g. investment banking, consulting, private equity, engineering, operations, tech or early-stage startups).
Founder mentality: You operate beyond your role, improving systems, processes, and outcomes for the broader team. You might be a former founder, a consultant ready to own outcomes, an MBA who prefers execution over theory, or someone from growth/product/strategy/ops who loves closing.
Operator mindset: You combine strategy with execution. You can zoom out to define the plan and zoom in to make it happen.
Closing ability: Experience owning the full sales cycle or consistently delivering results in a high-performance environment.
Team builder: You’re excited to hire, develop, and lead a team. You set a high bar and create environments where people perform at their best.
Resilience: You’re energized by opening doors and navigating complex, multi-stakeholder decision processes.
Relationship intelligence: You build trust with senior stakeholders and understand how institutions make decisions.
Learning mindset: Excited to deeply understand math education and how districts adopt new solutions.
Location: Based in Chicago and willing to travel ~50%.
What Makes You Stand Out
- You’ve helped launch or scale something from 0 to 1
- You take ownership beyond your job description
- You naturally improve systems, strategy, and execution
- You’re curious about education, learning science, and systemic change
- You thrive in high-impact, high-responsibility environments
What We Offer You
Compensation: OTE 170K, with uncapped earning potential.
401(k) match: 5% company match to support your long-term financial wellbeing.
Comprehensive health benefits: Medical, dental, and vision — we cover 100% of the premium for you.
Work alongside exceptional people: Collaborate with leading educators, mathematicians, and researchers shaping the future of math education.
A high-trust, collaborative team: We value ownership, candor, and genuine teamwork.
Meaningful ownership and visibility: As an early member of the U.S. expansion, your work will directly shape how we grow.
Cross-functional exposure: Work closely with Growth, Strategy, Marketing, and Math Success teams.
Mission-driven work: Be part of a systemic shift in education, transforming how students experience and learn math.
Time to recharge: Enjoy 22+ days of PTO, plus an additional week off during our company-wide holiday shutdown.
Connection & culture: Regular team meetups, team-building activities and an annual summer company offsite.
Innovamat is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building an inclusive team and welcome candidates from all backgrounds. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
We process personal data as part of our recruitment procedures. Please consult our Candidate Privacy Notices for more information.
Innovamat is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities throughout our hiring process. If you require assistance or accommodations, please contact us.
About Innovamat
Innovamat is transforming K–8 math education across the U.S. and beyond — and we’re just getting started.
We’re a fast-growing educational organization with 350+ teammates across 10 countries, building a new generation of math education grounded in research, teacher empowerment, and real classroom impact. Our curriculum, intervention programs, and adaptive technology are already trusted by 27,000+ teachers in 2,600+ schools worldwide — and we’re now in a pivotal phase of scaling our presence in the U.S.
Backed by leading thinkers like Peter Liljedahl (Building Thinking Classrooms), Innovamat sits at the intersection of learning science, product innovation, and execution.
We operate with a true startup mindset — we move fast, take ownership, experiment constantly, and are deeply driven by the impact we create for teachers and students.
Math should be joyful, meaningful, and transformational — not worksheets and rote memorization. We partner with districts and educators to reimagine what math classrooms can look like.
This is a chance to join early in our U.S. journey, take on real ownership, and help build something from the ground up.
The Role
We’re looking for a Founding Market Lead to launch and scale the Illinois region — one of our most strategic markets in the U.S.
This is not a traditional sales role. You’ll operate as the owner of the region, responsible for building pipeline, closing flagship partnerships, and laying the foundation for a high-performing team.
You’ll start as a hands-on builder — opening doors, closing deals, and shaping our go-to-market motion — and evolve into a leader, hiring and developing the team that will scale the region.
Roles like this are rare: you’ll have the autonomy of a founder, the backing of a global company, and the opportunity to shape how an entire region — and eventually the U.S. — grows.
What You’ll Do
Own and grow the Illinois territory:
Build Innovamat’s presence across the region by identifying priority districts, shaping a focused territory strategy, and creating strong momentum in the market. Lead district partnerships end-to-end — from outbound and first conversations to pilots and closing long-term agreements.
Operate with full ownership of the Illinois market:
Take a holistic view of the region — owning revenue, partnerships, and local strategy — while working closely with the GM as a trusted right hand. Drive performance and outcomes with a strong sense of accountability, treating the territory as your business.
Build and lead a high performing team:
Hire, onboard, and develop a high-performing regional team (AEs, Math Success Managers, etc.) as we scale. Set the bar for performance and culture from day one.
Open doors with districts:
Generate pipeline through strategic outreach, networking, conferences, and strong presence in the education ecosystem.
Lead consultative conversations:
Engage district leaders in meaningful discussions about their math challenges and introduce Innovamat’s research-backed approach.
Collaborate to close:
Partner closely with Math Success, Strategy, and Marketing to deliver compelling demos, pilots, and proposals.
Refine the go-to-market motion:
Identify patterns, improve messaging, and help build the playbook for scaling district partnerships across new regions.
Be the face of Innovamat locally:
Represent Innovamat at conferences, events, and district meetings to build credibility and brand presence.
What We’re Looking For
Entrepreneurial spirit: You create momentum from scratch. You’ve built, shipped, or taken ownership of something meaningful before.
Experience in fast-paced environments: A proven track record of grit, resilience, and performance in another fast paced environment where ownership and results matter (e.g. investment banking, consulting, private equity, engineering, operations, tech or early-stage startups).
Founder mentality: You operate beyond your role, improving systems, processes, and outcomes for the broader team. You might be a former founder, a consultant ready to own outcomes, an MBA who prefers execution over theory, or someone from growth/product/strategy/ops who loves closing.
Operator mindset: You combine strategy with execution. You can zoom out to define the plan and zoom in to make it happen.
Closing ability: Experience owning the full sales cycle or consistently delivering results in a high-performance environment.
Team builder: You’re excited to hire, develop, and lead a team. You set a high bar and create environments where people perform at their best.
Resilience: You’re energized by opening doors and navigating complex, multi-stakeholder decision processes.
Relationship intelligence: You build trust with senior stakeholders and understand how institutions make decisions.
Learning mindset: Excited to deeply understand math education and how districts adopt new solutions.
Location: Based in Chicago and willing to travel ~50%.
What Makes You Stand Out
- You’ve helped launch or scale something from 0 to 1
- You take ownership beyond your job description
- You naturally improve systems, strategy, and execution
- You’re curious about education, learning science, and systemic change
- You thrive in high-impact, high-responsibility environments
What We Offer You
Compensation: OTE 170K, with uncapped earning potential.
401(k) match: 5% company match to support your long-term financial wellbeing.
Comprehensive health benefits: Medical, dental, and vision — we cover 100% of the premium for you.
Work alongside exceptional people: Collaborate with leading educators, mathematicians, and researchers shaping the future of math education.
A high-trust, collaborative team: We value ownership, candor, and genuine teamwork.
Meaningful ownership and visibility: As an early member of the U.S. expansion, your work will directly shape how we grow.
Cross-functional exposure: Work closely with Growth, Strategy, Marketing, and Math Success teams.
Mission-driven work: Be part of a systemic shift in education, transforming how students experience and learn math.
Time to recharge: Enjoy 22+ days of PTO, plus an additional week off during our company-wide holiday shutdown.
Connection & culture: Regular team meetups, team-building activities and an annual summer company offsite.
Innovamat is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building an inclusive team and welcome candidates from all backgrounds. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
We process personal data as part of our recruitment procedures. Please consult our Candidate Privacy Notices for more information.
Innovamat is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities throughout our hiring process. If you require assistance or accommodations, please contact us.
See all 19,160+ Founding Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Founding Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Visa Sponsorship as a Founding Engineer
Target seed to Series B companies
Early-stage startups sponsoring a Founding Engineer typically move faster through internal approval than enterprises. Companies at seed to Series B stages are actively competing for scarce talent and less likely to reject a strong candidate over visa paperwork.
Lead with technical ownership, not just skills
Sponsorship decisions for founding engineers hinge on demonstrated ownership: systems you've built from scratch, architectural decisions you've led. Interviewers need to justify a specialty occupation petition, and a generalist skills list won't support that case.
Understand what makes this a specialty occupation
USCIS requires a direct link between your degree field and the role. For Founding Engineer positions, a computer science, software engineering, or closely related degree creates the clearest path. Document how your academic background connects directly to the technical scope.
O-1A is a realistic path for engineers with standout credentials
If you've published research, contributed to widely used open-source projects, or received industry awards, the O-1A visa is worth exploring. It bypasses the H-1B lottery entirely and is increasingly common among high-profile founding engineering hires at venture-backed startups.
Get clarity on equity and sponsorship continuity early
Startup equity is a core part of founding engineer compensation, but it creates a sponsorship complexity: if the company is acquired or shuts down, your visa status is tied to that employer. Clarify the company's runway and succession plan before accepting an offer.
Use Migrate Mate to find startups actively sponsoring
Most founding engineer roles with active sponsorship don't advertise it prominently. Migrate Mate filters specifically for visa-sponsoring employers, so you're not spending hours applying to companies that will decline at the offer stage because of your status.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a startup sponsor a Founding Engineer for an H-1B visa?
Yes. Startups can file H-1B visa petitions regardless of company size, including pre-revenue companies, as long as there's an employer-employee relationship and the role qualifies as a specialty occupation. USCIS scrutinizes small employers more heavily, so documentation of the job's degree requirement and the company's ability to pay the prevailing wage is critical. Having an attorney prepare the petition significantly improves outcomes.
What degree does a Founding Engineer need for H-1B sponsorship?
USCIS requires a bachelor's degree or higher in a directly related field, typically computer science, software engineering, electrical engineering, or a closely adjacent discipline. A general business or unrelated degree creates risk. If your degree doesn't match the role precisely, three years of highly specialized work experience can substitute for each year of missing education, though this requires strong documentation.
How does the H-1B lottery affect Founding Engineer hiring at startups?
It's a real constraint. Only about 85,000 H-1B visas are issued annually against far more registrations, so selection isn't guaranteed in any given year. Startups sponsoring Founding Engineers often explore parallel pathways, O-1A for candidates with exceptional credentials, or EB-1C if there's a management track. Some companies time hiring to align with the April lottery window and plan onboarding around October 1 start dates.
Is the O-1A visa a realistic option for a Founding Engineer role?
For candidates with notable credentials, yes. The O-1A requires evidence of extraordinary ability across criteria like original contributions, published work, high salary relative to peers, critical roles at distinguished organizations, or press coverage. Founding engineers at well-known startups, open-source contributors with significant adoption, or engineers with conference presentations often qualify. The O-1A has no lottery and no annual cap, which makes it attractive for both candidates and employers who need certainty.
Where can I find Founding Engineer jobs that include visa sponsorship?
Migrate Mate is built specifically for this, every role on the platform is filtered for active visa sponsorship, so you're not wading through listings that will fall apart at the offer stage. Founding Engineer roles at sponsoring startups are listed directly, with employer details and role requirements visible upfront. It's the most direct way to connect your job search with companies that have already committed to sponsoring international candidates.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored Founding Engineer jobs?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.