Founding Engineer

Title: Founding Engineer
Summary: Founding Engineer at an early-stage, well-funded AI startup. Sydney hybrid.
Bullet points:Founding Engineer role at an early-stage, well-funded AI startupSydney hybrid, competitive base + founding-team equityWork directly with the founder, own technical direction end-to-endAI-native codebase, high autonomy, minimal specificationGenuine early-stage building opportunity — define the technical foundation
Full description:Location: Sydney (hybrid) Salary: Competitive base + founding-team equity Type: Full-time, Permanent
About the companyOur client is an early-stage, well-funded startup building AI-native products in a fast-growing market. They're past initial product-market fit, generating real revenue, and working with genuine enterprise customers. Backed by strong investors, they're now scaling from founder-led delivery to a small, high-leverage founding team.
The roleWe're looking for a Founding Engineer to take technical ownership of the business end to end — product engineering, infrastructure, AI/agents, and everything in between. You'll work directly with the founder, shape the technical direction, and be one of the first engineering hires that defines how this company builds for years to come.
This is a hands-on role. You'll be writing code, making architectural decisions, and directing AI tooling and agents to multiply your own output — not managing a large team.
Key responsibilitiesOwn the technical architecture and roadmap end to end.Build, ship, and iterate on production systems quickly, with high autonomy and minimal specification.Set the engineering standard — testing, evaluation, deployment practices — for an AI-native codebase.Work closely with the founder on product decisions, not just execution.Balance deep technical work with customer and stakeholder-facing conversations.
What we're looking forExperience as a founding engineer, principal/staff engineer, or technical lead. Scope of ownership matters more than title.A track record of shipping real production systems, ideally involving AI/LLMs, agents, or similar modern tooling.Comfort making independent decisions with limited specification — someone who can take a short brief and run with it end to end.Strong product instincts — an opinion on what to build, what to cut, and what actually matters to the customer.Genuine enthusiasm for early-stage company building, not just the idea of it.
What's on offerCompetitive base salary plus meaningful founding-team equity.Direct, high-trust working relationship with the founder.The chance to define the technical foundation of a company from a very early stage.