Founding Engineer

Founding Engineer (NYC)

Lava: the connector to every LLM, API, and MCP.

Join Lava's team in shaping how people and AI build, monetize, and work together.

About Lava

Lava is a universal connector to every LLM, API, and MCP, powering an integrated workspace and productivity with no key sprawl to manage. Lava also gives developers and businesses a way to get paid for the agents and services they list in the gateway, with no billing stack to build.

• The Lava app puts an agent inside the real apps people already use, so it can act across them instead of just describing what to do.
• You describe the task in plain language and the agent handles the workflow.
• Lava MCP drops that same access into AI tools.
• One connection to 200+ providers.

Build is Lava's monetization tool. Developers plug into the Gateway to route calls and set flexible pricing strategies. Lava handles the entire revenue lifecycle, metering, access control, and payouts, with zero code required on the merchant's side.

Our mission is to make it effortless for people and AI to work together. We're looking for early engineering hires to help define how and what we build.

What You’ll Do

• Work across Lava's three surfaces: the Lava app, Lava MCP, and monetization.
• Extend the Gateway and monetization systems (metering, billing, payouts).
• Collaborate closely with the founder, product, and sales to set the technical direction and architecture.
• Join sales development calls when needed, acting as a forward-deployed engineer who can bridge tech and customer needs.
• Move fast, adapt to ambiguity, and help shape the culture and processes from day one.

What We’re Looking For

• Driven, resourceful, and self-motivated, thriving in open-ended, fast-changing environments.
• Deep engineering experience, ideally full stack with a strong backend focus.
• Strong grasp of system design and building for scale.
• Hands-on AI user who actively experiments with and integrates AI tools.
• Experience with payments, infrastructure, or developer tooling is a plus.
• Comfortable switching between building, selling, and learning from users.

Why You’ll Love This Role

• You'll be solving one of the hardest and most important problems in AI: building the infrastructure that connects and monetizes AI-native products.
• Work in a small, tight-knit, and highly motivated team that stays focused on outcomes, without unnecessary process or distractions.
• Work directly with a founder who's built and sold a fintech company before, now doing it again at the center of the AI shift.
• Be part of a company operating at the cutting edge of AI, where speed, ownership, and impact matter more than process.
• The media is already excited about what we’re building: read our TechCrunch feature here.
• Significant influence over technical and product decisions from day one.
• Help shape how the trust layer, access layer, and financial backbone of the AI web get built.

Location & Work Authorization

• This is an in-person role based out of Lava’s New York City office.
• Candidates must currently be authorized to work in the United States; Lava is unable to sponsor visas at this time.

If you’re excited about owning big problems, building products people need, and having a direct hand in how the future of AI commerce works, we’d love to talk.