Founding Software Engineer

About the company

Our client is an early-stage software company.

The role

Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Join a very small engineering team as an early hire with broad ownership, building new product capabilities for complex engineering use cases. The work blends hands-on software development with frequent direct customer contact, helping decide what to build and how to support an active customer pilot.

What you'll do

• Design and build a new product capability that models how the parts of a complex engineered system connect, using design and requirements data.
• Help run and scale an active customer pilot so it succeeds with a growing user base.
• Take on a modest amount of infrastructure work, including some deployments in customer-controlled environments.
• Work directly with customers from the start, including travel, to shape product direction.
• Over time, contribute to training custom models for individual customers.

Requirements

What we're looking for

• Around 3 to 5 years of engineering experience, though exceptional earlier-career candidates are welcome.
• Strong problem-solving ability and the capacity to clear a demanding technical bar.
• A clear area of exceptional strength, such as hardware, infrastructure or product strategy.
• Sound engineering intuition and product sense, with the ability to turn customer input into buildable, valuable features.
• Comfort making architecture and trade-off decisions independently, such as speed versus long-term quality.
• A product-first mindset rather than a purely infrastructure focus.
• Genuine interest in applying AI to physical engineering and hardware.
• Startup or founder-style experience, with high trust, low ego and commitment through the early stage.

Bonus points

• Hardware or robotics background, including club or project experience.
• Prior experience founding or working at an early-stage startup.
• Complex technical work such as optimization or CAD and 3D modeling.

Benefits

Compensation and benefits

Base salary

USD 180,000 to 250,000 per year

• Equity
• Health, dental and vision coverage
• Paid time off

Location and work model

• San Francisco, CA, United States
• On-site
• Full-time