{"id":3354629,"url":"https://alion.io/job/guild-founding-engineer","title":"Founding Engineer","company":{"id":3779992,"name":"GUILD","domain":"guildai.co","url":"https://alion.io/company/guild-8","size_band":"51-200","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":["Hoboken, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":90000,"max":170000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":170000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":2,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Supabase","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-27T19:36:20Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-27","last_verified_at":"2026-11-02T00:10:52Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"About GUILD\nGUILD is building the Amazon for defense manufacturing. We're an AI-native defense prime: we win government contracts, route production across our network of vetted US factories, handle compliance, and deliver straight to the government's door.\nLockheed, Boeing, RTX and the rest of the primes are slow and expensive, and a broken procurement system protects them. Meanwhile the defense industrial base has shrunk 40%. The government pays too much, waits too long, and has nowhere else to go. We're here to beat the primes at their own game and fix how the government builds what the country needs.\nWe have won nearly $300K in DoD contracts in the last few months to manufacture fighter jet components for the Air Force. Today we make aerospace parts. Next we'll run our own automated factory and full defense programs.\nWe're backed by Y Combinator (S26), Rebel Fund, Pioneer Fund, Twenty Two Ventures, and others.\nThe role\nYou'll be GUILD's first engineering hire. Both founders write code today, and you'll build alongside us and own major parts of the platform.\nYou won't be starting from a blank page. Our platform is already running on live DoD work, and your job is to make it faster, smarter, and more reliable every week.\nThis is not a software-only job. Some weeks you'll be improving the agents that parse government technical data packages. Other weeks you'll be on the factory floor running 3D printers, working with a CNC machine, or redesigning a fixture.\nWhat you'll build and improve\nTechnical data package ingestion: extend the agents that turn government drawings and specs into full bills of materials, raw material requirements, and compliance flowdowns\n\nProduction routing: improve the systems that split work across our factory network to minimize cost and lead time\n\nThe data layer: own and scale the database and pipelines that power the platform\n\n3D printing factory operations: help run and automate our additive manufacturing operations, from print planning and machine utilization to quality control and throughput\n\nHardware: CAD/CAM, CNC, and tooling as we build toward our own automated factory\n\nYour first 90 days\nWeek 1: Ship an improvement to our existing platform that's used on live DoD work.\n\nMonth 1: Spend time in our 3D printing operations and with partner factories, find the biggest bottleneck in how parts get made and routed, and build the fix.\n\nMonth 3: Own a major piece of the platform end to end and help shape our in-house manufacturing capability.\n\nMust-haves\nUS citizen (required for our defense work)\n\n2-3+ years of engineering experience in industry\n\nStrong TypeScript and Python\nDeep database and SQL expertise. Schema design, query performance, and data modeling come naturally to you.\n\nAI-pilled. You build with LLMs every day and have hands-on experience with harness engineering, frontier model providers, and open-source models.\n\nReady to get your hands dirty with hardware, 3D printing, and electrical and mechanical engineering\n\nIn person in Hoboken, NJ, 4-5 days a week\nNice to have\nCAD/CAM, CNC, or additive manufacturing / 3D printing experience (very valuable here)\nPrior startup experience, especially as an early or founding engineer\nAWS, Supabase, or Google Cloud\nBackground in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or supply chain\nEligibility for a security clearance\nYou don't need defense experience. Government procurement is opaque and full of acronyms, and nobody walks in knowing it. We'll teach you.\nFounders\nKaya Celebi (CEO): ML researcher. Former AI Tech Lead at Hartree Partners (commodities hedge fund) and ML Engineer at Morgan Stanley. MS in CS from Columbia, BS in CS and Statistics from Duke.\n\nErim Gurlemis (COO): Grew up on his family's factory floor, then worked in Morgan Stanley's Global Investment Office. BA from Rutgers.\n\nWe met at Morgan Stanley. We both come from military families, and this mission is personal for us.\nLocation\nOur office is in Hoboken, NJ. We're expanding in the next few months, likely in Hoboken or Manhattan. You'll also spend time on the factory floor and at partner factories.\nCompensation\n$90,000-$130,000 salary\n0.5-2% equity\nHealth benefits and a commuter stipend\nThe real upside is joining as the first engineer at a company setting out to beat Lockheed and Boeing.\nInterview process\n30-minute call with Kaya. Background, motivation, and fit.\n\n60-minute technical interview. Some simple live coding, then ambiguous, real-world problem solving and system design. Expect to reason through a messy problem the way you would on the job.\n\n30-minute conversation with Erim and Kaya. You'll get a decision right after.\n\n30-minute call with Kaya (background, motivation, fit)\n60-minute technical interview: some simple live coding, then ambiguous real-world problem solving and system design\n30-minute conversation with Erim and Kaya, followed by a decision","description_format":"text","description_chars":4880,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":2,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Manufacturing","Military","Defense Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-27T19:36:20Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.858,"p_room":1,"age_days":4,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early","comp:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":170000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/guild-founding-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/guild-founding-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-02T01:22:08Z","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":2089,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-03T00:00:00Z"}},"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":3779992},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3779992"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fguild-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%2Fguild-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%2Fguild-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/guild-founding-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fguild-founding-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3354629}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"guildai.co","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3354629},"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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