Founding AI/ML Engineer

About Recruiting from Scratch

Recruiting from Scratch is a specialized talent firm dedicated to helping companies build exceptional teams. We partner closely with our clients to deeply understand their needs, then connect them with top-tier candidates who are not only highly skilled but also the right fit for the company's culture and vision. Our mission is simple: place the best people in the right roles to drive long-term success for both clients and candidates.

https://www.recruitingfromscratch.com/

Role Overview

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Company Stage: Seed Stage (Raised $4.5M)
• Office Type: Hybrid (2--4 Days Per Week In Office)
• Salary: $175,000--$300,000 + Equity (1--2%)

Company Description

We're representing a venture-backed AI startup building an intelligent product design agent that helps teams explore, refine, and validate product ideas through visual collaboration and AI-powered workflows. Their platform combines generative AI, multimodal systems, and agentic workflows to help product teams move from concept to execution faster than ever before.

Founded by a repeat entrepreneur with leadership experience at Google, HQ Trivia, and multiple successful startups, the company has already attracted thousands of early users and secured $4.5M in funding. They are now hiring a Founding AI/ML Engineer to help build the intelligence layer that powers the next generation of AI-assisted product creation.

What You Will Do

• Own the end-to-end development of the company's AI and machine learning systems, from experimentation through production deployment.
• Design, build, and optimize agentic AI workflows that help users generate, refine, and evaluate product ideas and designs.
• Develop intelligent systems leveraging LLMs, retrieval pipelines, personalization, recommendation engines, and multimodal AI capabilities.
• Select, fine-tune, evaluate, and deploy machine learning models that improve product performance and user outcomes.
• Build backend systems and APIs that power AI-driven experiences at scale.
• Design evaluation frameworks and feedback loops to continuously improve model quality and user experience.
• Collaborate closely with the founder and engineering team to define technical strategy and product direction.
• Translate ambiguous product concepts into scalable AI-powered solutions.
• Contribute across both machine learning and product engineering, helping bridge research and production systems.

Ideal Background

• 4+ years of software engineering experience, including significant work on AI or machine learning products.
• 2+ years of experience building production machine learning systems and shipping customer-facing features.
• Experience developing and deploying AI-powered products in startup or high-growth environments.
• Strong backend engineering skills with deep experience in TypeScript and Python.
• Hands-on experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, or related ML frameworks.
• Experience building recommendation systems, retrieval architectures, search, ranking, reranking, personalization, memory systems, or vector search applications.
• Demonstrated success building 0-to-1 products or major product features.
• Strong product intuition and ability to balance technical excellence with user impact.
• Comfortable operating independently and taking ownership in an early-stage startup environment.

Preferred

• Experience building agentic AI products, autonomous workflows, or AI copilots.
• Background at product-focused companies building creative, design, collaboration, or developer tools.
• Experience with LLM orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or similar technologies.
• Familiarity with vector databases and retrieval systems.
• Experience with multimodal AI systems, generative AI products, or creative tooling.
• Startup experience, particularly at Seed through Series A stages.
• Interest in product design, creativity tools, and AI-assisted workflows.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary: $175,000--$300,000.
• Founding-level equity package ranging from approximately 1--2%.
• Opportunity to join a well-funded startup at an early stage and shape core product direction.
• Direct partnership with an experienced founder and leadership team.
• Hybrid work environment with flexibility and collaboration across San Francisco and New York teams.
• High ownership role with significant influence over product, technology, and company strategy.
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI, agentic systems, personalization, and multimodal experiences.
• Strong career growth potential as one of the earliest technical hires at the company.

https://www.recruitingfromscratch.com/