Founding Engineer
First seen by Alion on Sep 23, 2026.
This a Full Remote job, the offer is available from: New York (USA)
About the Role
This is a founding engineering seat at an early-stage AI startup in the sports and sales automation space, joining a small team building multi-modal AI agents across voice, SMS, and email. You will own one of four core domains end-to-end, making product decisions directly alongside customers with no dedicated PM. The company reached seven figures of ARR within its first several months, and this role offers a clear path into leadership or a deep IC track.
What You'll Do
Own an entire product domain from architecture through daily production feature shipping.
Join customer calls, synthesize feedback, and drive product decisions independently.
Build and optimize multi-modal agents targeting sub-500ms voice latency, high SMS response rates, and persistent conversation state across channels.
Define the architecture and quality bar for non-deterministic systems, including evals, prompt versioning, guardrails, and drift detection.
Work full-stack across React/Next.js frontends, Node.js backends, and Python voice services.
What We're Looking For
3 to 8 years of full-stack engineering experience with a track record of shipping 0-to-1 products at high-growth startups, as a founder, or in new vertical teams at large tech companies.
Strong proficiency in TypeScript with production experience using Node.js, React, and Next.js.
Hands-on production experience with LLM APIs or agent SDKs such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Vercel AI SDK, or similar frameworks (not just tutorials or prototypes).
Depth in at least one of: production voice or SMS agents, long-running agent state and memory, B2B2C or marketplace product architecture, or agent evals and guardrails.
Proven ability to conduct customer discovery calls and make product decisions without a dedicated PM.
Comfort operating without structure, defining processes from scratch, and sustaining high intensity during launches.
Python experience with real-time voice pipelines (LiveKit, Deepgram, STT/TTS) or evaluation tooling is a plus.
Familiarity with infrastructure tools such as Redis, BullMQ, Vercel, Render, Sentry, or PostHog is a plus.
Founder experience with verifiable traction (revenue, funding, or acquisition) is a plus, as are strong CS fundamentals from a rigorous program.
Compensation & Benefits
Salary range: $180,000 to $250,000 USD annually. Equity is available given the founding nature of the role. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
On-site, five days per week in New York City, New York, USA (Chelsea area).