Head of Engineering

Role at a Glance

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Salary: $350,000 - $500,000
• Employment type: Full-Time
• Work arrangement: In-office (5 days per week)
• Work intensity: 9-9-6
• Visa / Sponsorship: Yes
• Experience: 4–10 Years
• Industry: AI
• Company stage: Seed
• Company size: 11 – 50 (scaling beyond an ~18-person organization)
• Founding year: 2024

About the Role

We are scaling beyond an approximately 18-person organization and need a technical leader who can turn a strong, broad engineering effort into a coherent engineering organization. This hire will establish technical direction, raise the engineering bar, hire and develop the team, and ensure the engineering culture remains AI-native without sacrificing fundamentals, reliability, or code quality.

You will lead engineering across a model-routing platform (supporting 450+ open and closed-source models), an agent harness, memory, skills, and optimization work while partnering with the CEO, COO, and CPO on product direction and the hardest technical problems. The primary spike is building and leading the engineering organization as the team scales, while remaining hands-on enough to set architectural and implementation standards and earn the team’s trust.

What You'll Own

• Set technical direction and architecture across model routing, the agent harness, memory, skills, and optimization.
• Lead, hire, and grow the engineering organization as the team scales beyond its current size.
• Define engineering standards for fundamentals, code quality, reliability, and AI-native development.
• Partner with the CEO, COO, and CPO on roadmap decisions and complex technical and scaling problems.
• Stay close enough to the code and technical work to set the bar and maintain the team’s trust.

Technical Requirements

• Strong engineering depth across infrastructure and product development.
• AI-native experience combined with deep software engineering fundamentals.
• Ability to set technical direction across a platform that routes between 450+ models and supports enterprise agents.
• Ability to remain hands-on while leading architecture and engineering execution.

Execution and Ownership

• Experience hiring engineers and raising the technical bar of an organization.
• Ability to operate with startup intensity and take ownership of broad, ambiguous technical problems.
• Ability to lead technical decisions while collaborating closely with company and product leadership.
• Expected to work in person in San Francisco five days per week, with a stated 9-9-6 work rhythm.

Background & Qualifications

• Experience: Typically 4–10 years of relevant experience, including early or founding engineering experience at a high-growth or marquee AI company.
• Leadership readiness: Able to set direction, hire, and raise standards while staying technically close to the work.
• Pedigree: A strong computer science or engineering background is valued; no specific educational credential is required. Builder or founder experience is valued but not a strict requirement.

Nice to Have:

• Founding or very early engineering experience at a marquee AI company that scaled.
• A builder or founder streak, including having co-founded a company or run an independent venture.
• Experience spanning both infrastructure and product.
• Prior experience in a high-growth startup environment.
• Existing San Francisco location.

Who Will Thrive Here

This role suits a deeply technical engineering leader who has operated early at a strong AI company, enjoys building from first principles, and wants to shape both the architecture and the organization. The strongest fit will combine AI fluency with rigorous fundamentals, remain close to the code, and be energized by broad ownership and a demanding in-person startup environment.

Target Background Examples:

• Glean, LangChain, Decagon, Listen Labs

Benefits & Perks

• Relocation assistance (including temporary housing support to help relocate new hires into the city)
• Health / Medical / Dental
• Meaningful Equity