Founding Engineer

SF Bay Area Preferred | Remote

Contract to hire role

Comp: $125k-$150k base + meaningful equity

About the Company

We’re partnering with an early-stage startup building AI-powered tools for insurance professionals who represent policyholders, not insurers. As natural disasters become more frequent and the claims process grows more convoluted, this team is rethinking a slow, document-heavy, adversarial workflow and turning it into something faster, smarter, and more transparent. Their platform is evolving into a full claim intelligence workspace: the system of record for the entire claim lifecycle, from first notice of loss through final settlement.

They are a small team moving quickly and are looking for a founding-level engineer who wants to own the platform end-to-end. This role is remote, but there is a strong preference for candidates based in the SF Bay Area.

The Role

You’ll be the primary engineering owner of the platform, working across a TypeScript monorepo spanning a Next.js web app, a Bun/Node backend, an AI document-processing pipeline, an embeddable SDK and iframe, an IAM layer, and cloud infrastructure via Pulumi. You’ll partner directly with the CEO on product decisions, own build-vs-buy calls, and make real architectural choices that shape the future of the company.

You’ll also help lead the AI roadmap across multi-document reasoning, retrieval-augmented generation with page-level citation grounding, cross-document workflows such as coverage gaps, estimate vs. limits, rebuttal generation, and eventually agentic features that pull in external data like weather records, building codes, and case law. If you want full ownership and the ability to build something that directly impacts real people after devastating losses, this is that kind of opportunity.

This will be a contract to hire role.

What You’ll Own

Full-stack product development across the web app, backend services, and integrations such as Salesforce, Clerk, and webhooks
The AI pipeline, including document ingestion, extraction, and reasoning using Gemini and pdfjs, evolving toward multi-document RAG with grounded citations
Cross-document workflows including coverage gap analysis, estimate-vs-limits reconciliation, and AI-assisted rebuttal generation
The embeddable SDK and iframe product for third-party partner integrations
IAM layer including authentication, authorization, and role management via Clerk
Infrastructure via Pulumi including environments, deployments, secrets, and scaling on AWS
AI evaluation frameworks including continuous testing, model monitoring, and experiment design as the product grows more complex
Database design and migrations in PostgreSQL as the data model evolves
CI/CD, observability, and developer experience

What They’re Looking For

4+ years of full-stack engineering experience
Ownership mindset and ability to operate autonomously with sound judgment
Deep familiarity with state-of-the-art coding tools
Strong TypeScript and a high bar for clean, typed, maintainable code
Comfort with a Bun/Node backend, REST API design, and PostgreSQL
React/Next.js experience building production web applications
Hands-on experience with LLM APIs such as Gemini, OpenAI, or similar. You’ve shipped something real with AI, not just experimented with the API
Infra-as-code experience such as Pulumi, Terraform, or CDK, with the ability to provision and manage cloud resources without a dedicated DevOps team
Familiarity with auth systems and IAM concepts such as Clerk, Auth0, or similar
Comfort shaping technical direction, not just executing tickets

Nice to Have

Background in insurtech, legaltech, or other regulated, document-heavy industries
Prior experience at an early-stage startup
Strong front-end design intuition

Tech Stack

TypeScript, Bun, Next.js, PostgreSQL, Google Gemini, pdfjs, Pulumi, AWS, Clerk, Vercel, Docker, GitHub Actions, Salesforce

Why This Role Stands Out

Remote role with strong preference for SF Bay Area candidates
Meaningful equity
Direct line to the CEO and a very short loop between engineering work and product impact
Opportunity to shape both the platform and the company from the ground up

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Founding Engineer