{"id":2880270,"url":"https://alion.io/job/whyhirewrong-founding-product-engineer","title":"Founding Product Engineer","company":{"id":7360,"name":"WhyHireWrong","domain":"whyhirewrong.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/whyhirewrong","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Teamtailor","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0.25,"stale_share":0.25,"repost_share":0.25,"time_to_fill_p50_days":30,"computed_at":"2026-10-22T06:10:10Z"}},"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":["Vienna, Austria","San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["AT","US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":40000,"max_usd":90000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":11},"experience_years_min":2,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"React.js","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-19T18:04:29Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-19","last_verified_at":"2026-10-22T09:11:36Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"A Founding Product Engineer will own the product experience of an early-stage AI startup from initial concept through production delivery.\nThey will combine product design, frontend engineering, and technical product judgment to create polished interfaces for software built around AI agents.\nThis is one of the first three engineering roles. The position is full-time and on-site in San Francisco six days per week. Relocation support is available, including an O-1 visa route for exceptional international candidates and a possible initial start in Vienna.\nResponsibilities\nOwn product work from problem definition and user flows through interface design, implementation, release, and iteration.\nDesign and ship production interfaces using TypeScript and React.\nTranslate rough concepts, sketches, and workflows into clear, high-quality product experiences.\nEstablish interaction patterns for AI-agent products, including agent state, activity, outcomes, errors, approval steps, and human overrides.\nWork directly with the founder to decide what to build, how it should work, and what quality bar the product must meet.\nBuild reusable frontend components and product foundations that support rapid iteration without creating avoidable technical debt.\nConnect frontend experiences to backend services, APIs, and AI-agent workflows.\nValidate product decisions through prototypes, shipped features, user feedback, and observed usage.\nBalance speed, visual quality, usability, technical quality, and scope when making product trade-offs.\nOwn production outcomes, including debugging, performance, reliability, and follow-up improvements.\nEstablish practical standards for frontend architecture, accessibility, responsiveness, testing, and maintainability.\nUse AI coding tools appropriately while reviewing generated code and maintaining responsibility for the resulting product.\nRequired experience\n2 to 8 years of hands-on product or software engineering experience.\nProduction experience shipping applications with TypeScript and React.\nExperience owning work across both product design and implementation.\nDemonstrable visual and interaction design ability through shipped products, a portfolio, prototypes, or side projects.\nExperience building a product or feature from zero to one in a startup, founding-team, or similarly ambiguous environment.\nAbility to connect frontend applications to APIs, backend services, and asynchronous workflows.\nAbility to make clear product and technical decisions without complete requirements.\nWillingness to work on-site in San Francisco six days per week.\nWillingness to relocate to San Francisco if not already based there.\nTechnical environment\nTypeScript.\nReact.\nFrontend product architecture.\nUI component systems.\nAI-agent interfaces.\nAPI-connected web applications.\nPrototyping and interface design.\nAI coding tools.\nProduction software development.\nSuccess measures\nProduct concepts become usable, tested, and production-ready features quickly.\nInterfaces are visually coherent, understandable, responsive, and reliable.\nAI-agent interactions clearly communicate state, progress, outcomes, failures, and required user action.\nFrontend architecture supports rapid product iteration without unnecessary duplication or fragility.\nProduct decisions are validated through working software and user feedback rather than remaining at the concept stage.\nShipped features meet defined user outcomes while maintaining appropriate standards for accessibility, performance, testing, and maintainability.\nThe engineer takes full responsibility for product outcomes from initial idea through production operation.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3645,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":2,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-19T22:37:14Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":54,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.542,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:1","agency","velocity","win:early","comp:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-10-22T06:10:10Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/whyhirewrong-founding-product-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/whyhirewrong-founding-product-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-22T16:01:15Z","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 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