Founding Software Engineer

Founding Engineer | Applied AI 📍 San Francisco, CA | 4+ days/week in person 💰 $250K base + 10% equity 🧠 4+ years of software engineering experience About the Company & Role An early-stage legal AI company is building a new kind of law firm designed to function like primary care for legal services: helping people understand their legal needs and connecting them with the right attorney. A core part of the platform is a conversational AI intake receptionist that integrates directly with law firms' phone systems and websites, understands incoming legal inquiries, and routes clients to the appropriate resources. The product is already working. Now the company is hiring its first engineer to work directly with the Founder and turn the existing prototype into a reliable, secure, production-grade platform. This is a true founding role with significant influence over the product, architecture, technical direction, and future engineering organization. What You'll Own Take the existing conversational AI product from prototype to production-grade reliabilityOwn the voice AI intake experience across live calls and web-based intakeBuild the full-stack referral platform connecting attorneys, partner firms, and clientsDesign systems that safely handle sensitive client information and fundsOwn privacy, security, reliability, and production infrastructureWork directly with partner firms to implement and integrate the productIntegrate with existing phone systems, call routing, telephony, and IVR environmentsBuild new product workflows based directly on feedback from firms and usersHelp shape technical strategy as the company's first engineering hire What We're Looking For 4+ years of professional software engineering experienceRecent hands-on experience building applied AI products used by real customersExperience taking an early product or prototype into productionStrong ownership of production reliability, security, and/or privacyFull-stack capability and comfort owning products end-to-endExperience building customer-facing softwareComfortable working directly with customers or partners during implementation and troubleshootingExcited by a highly autonomous, early-stage startup environmentBased in the Bay Area or willing to relocateComfortable working in person in San Francisco at least 4 days per week Especially Relevant Backgrounds Experience in any of the following is a strong plus, but not required: Voice AI or conversational AITelephony, SIP, call routing, or IVRHealthcare AI, particularly intake, scribing, or triageLegal AIHigh-stakes AI products involving sensitive dataForward-deployed or customer-facing engineering Why This Role Stands Out 🚀 First engineering hire with meaningful influence over what gets built and how 🧠 Real applied AI problems, not AI added as a feature after the fact 🔐 Engineering challenges centered around reliability, privacy, security, and high-stakes real-world usage 🤝 Direct exposure to customers and the Founder rather than layers of product and engineering management 📈 Early enough to meaningfully shape the company, product, and future technical team Compensation & Benefits $250,000 base salary10% equityHealth insuranceFree lunchRelocation support for the right candidatePotential U.S. visa sponsorship/transfer for candidates already based in the United States This is best suited for an engineer who wants substantial ownership, enjoys operating without a predefined playbook, and wants to help build both the product and the engineering foundation of a company from the earliest stage.