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, 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.
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Get Access To All JobsABOUT THE JOB
At BuildOps, we’re building a groundbreaking software solution designed to empower today’s commercial contractors. From service management to project execution, we’re reimagining how our customers operate. Our team thrives on ambition, innovation, and collaboration—qualities we look for in every new hire.
As our Founding Engineer, Agentic Business Transformation, you will embed directly within business functions across the organization, deeply understand how teams operate today, and fundamentally reimagine how they should operate tomorrow. This is not about bolting automation onto existing processes; it's about redesigning how work gets done with agentic tooling transforming (and eliminating) workflows. You will partner with leaders across GTM and G&A to surface high-impact opportunities, architect intelligent solutions, and deliver measurable gains in productivity, output quality, and the experiences we deliver to our customers and employees. You will define what "AI-native operations" looks like inside a high-growth B2B SaaS company—well before most companies have even started asking the question. This is a high visibility role and will involve daily contact with the CEO, Chief of Staff, Chief Revenue Officer, and other members of the BuildOps Executive Leadership Team (ELT).
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Embed within internal business functions, including Revenue, RevOps, Customer Success, Customer Support, Finance, People, and Talent, to develop a deep, firsthand understanding of current workflows, pain points, and decision-making processes
- Conduct structured discovery, shadowing teams, interviewing stakeholders, and mapping end-to-end processes, to identify where AI can eliminate, redesign, or dramatically accelerate work
- Reimagine workflows from first principles rather than automating existing steps; challenge assumptions about what requires human involvement and what doesn’t
- Design, build, and deploy AI-powered automations, agents, and internal tools that reduce time spent on repetitive, low-value-add tasks while improving the quality and consistency of outputs
- Integrate large language models, agentic frameworks, and automation platforms into production-grade internal workflows with appropriate guardrails, error handling, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints
- Measure everything: establish baselines before intervention, track adoption and usage patterns post-deployment, and quantify productivity impact in terms of hours saved, error rates reduced, and cycle times compressed
- Serve as a trusted advisor to functional leaders on what AI can and cannot do for their teams; translate business problems into technical solutions and technical constraints into business language
- Stay abreast of the rapidly evolving AI tooling landscape (e.g., LLM capabilities, orchestration frameworks, RPA-to-AI convergence, no-code/low-code platforms) and calibrate our internal stack accordingly
- Build reusable patterns, templates, and playbooks so that successful automations in one function can be adapted and scaled across others
- Collaborate closely with the engineering and product organizations to ensure internal automation efforts align with our broader technology strategy and do not create shadow IT risk
QUALIFICATIONS
- 5+ years of professional experience building automations, intelligent workflows, or AI-powered solutions in a business context—whether that foundation was in robotic process automation, software engineering, solutions engineering, or applied AI
- Demonstrated ability to work directly with non-technical business teams: you have spent meaningful time understanding how people actually work before designing what to build
- Hands-on experience with modern AI tooling, including large language models (e.g., Claude, GPT), prompt engineering, and at least one orchestration or agentic framework (e.g., LangChain, CrewAI, n8n, or similar)
- Strong scripting and integration skills with the ability to connect APIs, build data pipelines, and stand up end-to-end workflows in production—not just prototypes
- Track record of automating processes that previously required human judgment—not just rules-based tasks, but work involving unstructured data, natural language inputs, or contextual decision-making
- Process-oriented mindset: you naturally decompose complex workflows into discrete steps, identify bottlenecks, and think in terms of inputs, outputs, and handoffs
- Comfort operating with high autonomy in a fast-moving environment; you don’t wait to be told what to build — you go find the highest-leverage problem and propose a solution
- Excellent communication skills: you can present a business case to the CEO, C-suite executives, or VPs, run a discovery session with an ops team, and write clear documentation for a workflow you’ve built
- Experience in B2B SaaS, vertical software, or a similarly complex operational environment is a strong plus
- Familiarity with process mining, workflow analytics, or structured methodologies for identifying automation candidates (e.g., lean, six sigma, or consulting-style process improvement) is a plus
COMPENSATION
- [$188,000 to $273,000 base] + bonus opportunity (LA or SF Hub)
What we offer:
- Generous equity grant, become an owner in our company!
- A comprehensive benefits package
- Flexible PTO and hybrid work schedules
- One-time work-from-home allowance
- Hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Raleigh with hybrid work schedules and lunch provided for in-office days
- Company events and team-building activities, both in-person and virtual
- Fast-paced, collaborative, and dynamic work environment
- Opportunities for growth and career advancement
- Chance to work with cutting-edge technology and innovative solutions
- The chance to get in on the ground floor and build something truly groundbreaking for ourselves and our amazing customers
We welcome applicants from across the U.S. where we are registered to do business and able to support employment. Currently, this excludes the following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. This list is based solely on operational and compliance considerations and is reviewed from time to time as our footprint grows.
ABOUT BUILDOPS
Join BuildOps, the largest commercial trade platform in the country, as we transform the multi-billion dollar commercial contracting industry!
We’re not just talking incremental improvements—we’re talking a full-scale revolution, empowering the hardworking heroes who build and maintain the infrastructure that keeps our world running. See why contractors choose BuildOps here.
This is your chance to be part of a rocketship. We’re fresh off a $1 billion valuation and a $127M Series C funding round (part of over $275M raised to date) led by industry-leading investors like Meritech Capital, BOND, and SE Ventures, backed by Schneider Electric. Our latest investors join our team of industry heavyweights like Next47, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, former Salesforce President Gavin Patterson, and Boost Mobile CEO Stephen Stokols. Their investment is fueling our aggressive growth and our commitment to equipping contractors with AI-driven tools to conquer chaos, boost efficiency, skyrocket profitability, and ultimately, deliver exceptional service.
At BuildOps, we’re changing the game and doing the best work of our careers. You’ll be a key player in a company that’s truly making a difference for the backbone of our economy. If you’re ready to tackle big challenges, work with a passionate team, and build something extraordinary, BuildOps is the place for you. 🚀
BuildOps is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
BuildOps will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act pursuant to applicable local and state laws.
ABOUT THE JOB
At BuildOps, we’re building a groundbreaking software solution designed to empower today’s commercial contractors. From service management to project execution, we’re reimagining how our customers operate. Our team thrives on ambition, innovation, and collaboration—qualities we look for in every new hire.
As our Founding Engineer, Agentic Business Transformation, you will embed directly within business functions across the organization, deeply understand how teams operate today, and fundamentally reimagine how they should operate tomorrow. This is not about bolting automation onto existing processes; it's about redesigning how work gets done with agentic tooling transforming (and eliminating) workflows. You will partner with leaders across GTM and G&A to surface high-impact opportunities, architect intelligent solutions, and deliver measurable gains in productivity, output quality, and the experiences we deliver to our customers and employees. You will define what "AI-native operations" looks like inside a high-growth B2B SaaS company—well before most companies have even started asking the question. This is a high visibility role and will involve daily contact with the CEO, Chief of Staff, Chief Revenue Officer, and other members of the BuildOps Executive Leadership Team (ELT).
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Embed within internal business functions, including Revenue, RevOps, Customer Success, Customer Support, Finance, People, and Talent, to develop a deep, firsthand understanding of current workflows, pain points, and decision-making processes
- Conduct structured discovery, shadowing teams, interviewing stakeholders, and mapping end-to-end processes, to identify where AI can eliminate, redesign, or dramatically accelerate work
- Reimagine workflows from first principles rather than automating existing steps; challenge assumptions about what requires human involvement and what doesn’t
- Design, build, and deploy AI-powered automations, agents, and internal tools that reduce time spent on repetitive, low-value-add tasks while improving the quality and consistency of outputs
- Integrate large language models, agentic frameworks, and automation platforms into production-grade internal workflows with appropriate guardrails, error handling, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints
- Measure everything: establish baselines before intervention, track adoption and usage patterns post-deployment, and quantify productivity impact in terms of hours saved, error rates reduced, and cycle times compressed
- Serve as a trusted advisor to functional leaders on what AI can and cannot do for their teams; translate business problems into technical solutions and technical constraints into business language
- Stay abreast of the rapidly evolving AI tooling landscape (e.g., LLM capabilities, orchestration frameworks, RPA-to-AI convergence, no-code/low-code platforms) and calibrate our internal stack accordingly
- Build reusable patterns, templates, and playbooks so that successful automations in one function can be adapted and scaled across others
- Collaborate closely with the engineering and product organizations to ensure internal automation efforts align with our broader technology strategy and do not create shadow IT risk
QUALIFICATIONS
- 5+ years of professional experience building automations, intelligent workflows, or AI-powered solutions in a business context—whether that foundation was in robotic process automation, software engineering, solutions engineering, or applied AI
- Demonstrated ability to work directly with non-technical business teams: you have spent meaningful time understanding how people actually work before designing what to build
- Hands-on experience with modern AI tooling, including large language models (e.g., Claude, GPT), prompt engineering, and at least one orchestration or agentic framework (e.g., LangChain, CrewAI, n8n, or similar)
- Strong scripting and integration skills with the ability to connect APIs, build data pipelines, and stand up end-to-end workflows in production—not just prototypes
- Track record of automating processes that previously required human judgment—not just rules-based tasks, but work involving unstructured data, natural language inputs, or contextual decision-making
- Process-oriented mindset: you naturally decompose complex workflows into discrete steps, identify bottlenecks, and think in terms of inputs, outputs, and handoffs
- Comfort operating with high autonomy in a fast-moving environment; you don’t wait to be told what to build — you go find the highest-leverage problem and propose a solution
- Excellent communication skills: you can present a business case to the CEO, C-suite executives, or VPs, run a discovery session with an ops team, and write clear documentation for a workflow you’ve built
- Experience in B2B SaaS, vertical software, or a similarly complex operational environment is a strong plus
- Familiarity with process mining, workflow analytics, or structured methodologies for identifying automation candidates (e.g., lean, six sigma, or consulting-style process improvement) is a plus
COMPENSATION
- [$188,000 to $273,000 base] + bonus opportunity (LA or SF Hub)
What we offer:
- Generous equity grant, become an owner in our company!
- A comprehensive benefits package
- Flexible PTO and hybrid work schedules
- One-time work-from-home allowance
- Hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Raleigh with hybrid work schedules and lunch provided for in-office days
- Company events and team-building activities, both in-person and virtual
- Fast-paced, collaborative, and dynamic work environment
- Opportunities for growth and career advancement
- Chance to work with cutting-edge technology and innovative solutions
- The chance to get in on the ground floor and build something truly groundbreaking for ourselves and our amazing customers
We welcome applicants from across the U.S. where we are registered to do business and able to support employment. Currently, this excludes the following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. This list is based solely on operational and compliance considerations and is reviewed from time to time as our footprint grows.
ABOUT BUILDOPS
Join BuildOps, the largest commercial trade platform in the country, as we transform the multi-billion dollar commercial contracting industry!
We’re not just talking incremental improvements—we’re talking a full-scale revolution, empowering the hardworking heroes who build and maintain the infrastructure that keeps our world running. See why contractors choose BuildOps here.
This is your chance to be part of a rocketship. We’re fresh off a $1 billion valuation and a $127M Series C funding round (part of over $275M raised to date) led by industry-leading investors like Meritech Capital, BOND, and SE Ventures, backed by Schneider Electric. Our latest investors join our team of industry heavyweights like Next47, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, former Salesforce President Gavin Patterson, and Boost Mobile CEO Stephen Stokols. Their investment is fueling our aggressive growth and our commitment to equipping contractors with AI-driven tools to conquer chaos, boost efficiency, skyrocket profitability, and ultimately, deliver exceptional service.
At BuildOps, we’re changing the game and doing the best work of our careers. You’ll be a key player in a company that’s truly making a difference for the backbone of our economy. If you’re ready to tackle big challenges, work with a passionate team, and build something extraordinary, BuildOps is the place for you. 🚀
BuildOps is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
BuildOps will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act pursuant to applicable local and state laws.
See all 47+ 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.
Founding Engineer jobs are hiring across the US. Find yours.
Find Founding Engineer JobsFrequently Asked Questions
Can a startup sponsor a Founding Engineer for an H-1B visa?
Yes. Startups can file H-1B 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.
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