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.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
Our client is a YC-backed AI startup working to transform drug discovery, with a mission as ambitious as it gets: helping cure cancer. They’re building the foundational data layer and the pre- and post-training simulation environments where the next generation of medical AI models will learn.
They’ve raised a $10M pre-seed at a $100M valuation, backed by angel investors including executives from OpenAI and Anthropic. Now they’re assembling the founding team, and this is one of the first seats at the table.
You’ll own the full reinforcement learning loop and build the evaluation and reward layer that teaches frontier models to reason correctly about real-world clinical and genomic data. In healthcare, the difference between a model that sounds right and one that is right matters enormously, and you’ll be the one defining that difference.
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
What you’ll do:
- Build RL environments end to end, including task design, action spaces, tool interfaces, verifiers, and evaluation harnesses
- Run post-training experiments on language models and agents using SFT, RLVR, RLHF/RLAIF, and reward modeling
- Train and evaluate multi-step agents that navigate complex patient histories and unstructured medical data, capturing what correct clinical reasoning actually looks like
- Dig into model failures and use what you find to improve the data, rewards, and feedback signals that shape what these systems learn
- Help set the technical direction, culture, and hiring bar as a founding team member
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
What you bring:
- 1+ years of deeply technical work in reinforcement learning, agent environments, LM post-training, or related ML systems, whether in industry, research, or serious independent projects
- Strong judgment about data quality: you can assess signal fidelity, coverage, and relevance, and you know what makes a training task meaningful
- The ability to build scalable pipelines, debug complex training runs in large ML codebases, and move fast from research idea to working prototype
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Nice to have:
- Experience with healthcare, clinical, biological, or genomic data (not required; you’ll pick up the domain quickly alongside the team)
- Publications, open-source work, or projects in RL, evals, or post-training
- Prior early-stage startup experience
WHY THIS ROLE
- A mission that matters: your work goes directly toward faster drug discovery and better cancer treatment
- Founding-team ownership: shape the core technology and the company itself from day one
- Serious backing: YC, a $10M pre-seed at a $100M valuation, and angels from OpenAI and Anthropic leadership
- Frontier problems: RL environments and reward design for medical AI is one of the least solved and most important areas in the field
- Top-tier compensation: up to $400k base, up to 1.0% equity, comprehensive benefits, and an unlimited AI tools budget
Don’t tick every box? Please apply anyway. Some of the best people in RL and post-training took unconventional paths, and we’d rather hear from you than have you rule yourself out.
Interested? Reply and Goliath Partners will be in touch.
INTRODUCTION
Our client is a YC-backed AI startup working to transform drug discovery, with a mission as ambitious as it gets: helping cure cancer. They’re building the foundational data layer and the pre- and post-training simulation environments where the next generation of medical AI models will learn.
They’ve raised a $10M pre-seed at a $100M valuation, backed by angel investors including executives from OpenAI and Anthropic. Now they’re assembling the founding team, and this is one of the first seats at the table.
You’ll own the full reinforcement learning loop and build the evaluation and reward layer that teaches frontier models to reason correctly about real-world clinical and genomic data. In healthcare, the difference between a model that sounds right and one that is right matters enormously, and you’ll be the one defining that difference.
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
What you’ll do:
- Build RL environments end to end, including task design, action spaces, tool interfaces, verifiers, and evaluation harnesses
- Run post-training experiments on language models and agents using SFT, RLVR, RLHF/RLAIF, and reward modeling
- Train and evaluate multi-step agents that navigate complex patient histories and unstructured medical data, capturing what correct clinical reasoning actually looks like
- Dig into model failures and use what you find to improve the data, rewards, and feedback signals that shape what these systems learn
- Help set the technical direction, culture, and hiring bar as a founding team member
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
What you bring:
- 1+ years of deeply technical work in reinforcement learning, agent environments, LM post-training, or related ML systems, whether in industry, research, or serious independent projects
- Strong judgment about data quality: you can assess signal fidelity, coverage, and relevance, and you know what makes a training task meaningful
- The ability to build scalable pipelines, debug complex training runs in large ML codebases, and move fast from research idea to working prototype
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Nice to have:
- Experience with healthcare, clinical, biological, or genomic data (not required; you’ll pick up the domain quickly alongside the team)
- Publications, open-source work, or projects in RL, evals, or post-training
- Prior early-stage startup experience
WHY THIS ROLE
- A mission that matters: your work goes directly toward faster drug discovery and better cancer treatment
- Founding-team ownership: shape the core technology and the company itself from day one
- Serious backing: YC, a $10M pre-seed at a $100M valuation, and angels from OpenAI and Anthropic leadership
- Frontier problems: RL environments and reward design for medical AI is one of the least solved and most important areas in the field
- Top-tier compensation: up to $400k base, up to 1.0% equity, comprehensive benefits, and an unlimited AI tools budget
Don’t tick every box? Please apply anyway. Some of the best people in RL and post-training took unconventional paths, and we’d rather hear from you than have you rule yourself out.
Interested? Reply and Goliath Partners will be in touch.
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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.