{"id":145075,"url":"https://alion.io/job/crouton-founding-engineer","title":"Founding Engineer","company":{"id":52599,"name":"Crouton","domain":"usecrouton.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/crouton","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Work at a Startup","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"junior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["New York, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":160000,"max":220000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":220000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":1,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"React.js","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-28T09:52:33Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-28","last_verified_at":"2026-11-07T21:09:47Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":71,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":71},"description":"What is Crouton?\nCrouton builds software that helps companies understand how their people are actually deployed: who works where, how teams are structured, and how people are staffed across projects over time.\nWe’re already working with a small set of high-caliber companies across defense, robotics, and healthcare. These teams use Crouton to answer questions like “do we have capacity for this?” or “what happens if we reorganize this team?” in a way that’s fast and grounded in reality.\nWhy I’m building it\nI’m building Crouton because I saw how quickly clarity breaks down as a company grows. At my last company, even with incredibly strong people, it became hard to answer basic questions about who was working on what and how teams were actually structured.\nThe result is slower decisions and a lot of guesswork. I don’t think that should be the case. Companies should be able to understand how their people are deployed as clearly as they understand their financials.\nAbout the role\nWe’re looking for a Founding Engineer who wants real ownership.\nYou’ll build product directly in the hands of users, talk to customers regularly, and help define how the system actually works as we go. A lot of what we’re building doesn’t have obvious answers yet: things like how to represent people across systems, how teams evolve over time, and how planning should feel when it’s done well.\nYou’ll work closely with the founder and the people using the product day to day. The team is small, expectations are high, and there’s a lot of trust. If you like figuring things out, moving quickly, and having your work matter immediately, this will feel like a good place to be.\nAbout the tech you’ll work on\nA lot of the work is figuring out how to represent a constantly changing organization. Crouton combines data from different systems, reconciling inconsistencies, and makes it possible to reason about changes over time. You’ll help define how these pieces fit together and what the right abstractions should be.\nQualifications we look for\nComputer Science degree or equivalent experience\nExperience working as a professional software engineer on real production systems\nComfort working across the stack (frontend, backend, infrastructure)\nYou’ve operated in environments where you were expected to figure things out, not just implement specs\nStrong emotional intelligence and good judgment","description_format":"text","description_chars":2385,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":1,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-28T09:52:33Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":9,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.336,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":70,"expected_fill_days":24,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail","crowd:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-11-07T05:47:08Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":220000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/crouton-founding-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/crouton-founding-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-08T00:35:50Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1314,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-09T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":52599},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=52599"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcrouton-founding-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcrouton-founding-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcrouton-founding-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/crouton-founding-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcrouton-founding-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":145075}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"usecrouton.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":145075},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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