Founding Full-Stack Engineer

About SotantWe’re early, moving fast, and building the team that will define what AI-powered work looks like. Sotant is among the first companies building AI Employees for the real world, AI that doesn’t just answer questions, but learns how people work, reasons through complex problems, and gets real work done. Founded by AI and operations experts from MIT, Stanford, Imperial College, Tesla, and Bosch, and backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), we have the expertise, network, and resources to build at the frontier of AI. We’re building something that hasn’t been built before. There’s no established playbook for creating AI Employees capable of operating reliably inside complex, real-world environments. That means solving new technical problems, experimenting constantly, and helping define an entirely new category of software. About the FoundersEduardo Candela, Co-Founder & CEO: holds a PhD in AI from Imperial College London and an MSc in Operations Research from MIT. Before Sotant, he worked at Tesla on some of the operational challenges behind the Model 3 production ramp and later as a Data Scientist at the Bosch Center for AI. He has spent his career at the intersection of AI and complex real-world operations. He also previously founded a Y Combinator startup. Juan David Rodríguez, Co-Founder & COO: is a Stanford graduate with more than a decade of experience building and scaling technology companies in Silicon Valley. Before Sotant, he founded and led technology ventures and brings deep experience turning ambitious ideas into companies and products that scale. Why work at SotantBuild AI that actually does work — not another chatbot, but AI Employees that reason, learn, act, and execute in the real world.Build technology that improves people’s lives — take repetitive, complex, and time-consuming work off people’s plates so they can focus on the work humans do best.Work with world-class companies — build alongside teams running some of the most complex operations in the world and see your technology leave the screen and work in reality.Join at the starting point — we’re building a new category from scratch. The people joining now will help shape the technology, product, and culture that define Sotant.Build with an exceptional team — work alongside people with backgrounds spanning MIT, Stanford, Imperial College, Tesla, Bosch, the United Nations, and the a16z ecosystem, united by the ambition to build something extraordinary. Our cultureNerdy, collegial, relentlessly curious — we love what we do, learn incredibly fast, and genuinely enjoy solving hard problems together. We have a make-it-work mentality: whatever the challenge, we figure it out — together.Meritocracy, always — the best argument wins, not the loudest voice or the most senior person. Great ideas can come from anyone, and we expect everyone to speak up, challenge assumptions, and help us get to the best answer.Work hard, play hard — we typically work ~60 hours per week, not because we have to, but because we genuinely love what we’re building. We’re driven by the same ambition and belief in how big Sotant can become, so we work with intensity, gladly. And we have a lot of fun doing it — we work hard, celebrate hard, and have built a team that genuinely feels like a family.High ownership, low bureaucracy — what you own is yours. We care deeply about our work, take responsibility from beginning to end, and give it everything we have. There’s no “that’s not my job” mentality — if something needs to happen, we make it happen. The RoleAs a Founding Engineer, you’ll be one of the core technical builders of Sotant. You won’t inherit a finished product, a fixed stack, or a roadmap someone else already defined — you’ll help build them. You’ll work across the system, from backend architecture and distributed workflows to product experiences, AI agents, infrastructure, and whatever new technical challenges emerge as we build. We’re looking for a strong full-stack engineer, particularly strong on the backend, who can take a problem from “we’ve never done this before” to production. Why Be an Engineer at Sotant?Build what doesn’t exist yet — we’re creating tailor-made AI Employees for complex real-world operations. There’s no playbook to follow; you’ll help write it.Build at the frontier of AI — work hands-on with agents, LLMs, distributed systems, multimodal AI, and emerging technologies, solving problems that haven’t been solved before.Join early enough to shape everything — have a real say in our architecture, stack, product, and engineering culture while the foundations of Sotant are still being built. What You’ll BuildThe foundations of our AI Employees — backend services, APIs, data models, distributed workflows, and the systems that allow our agents to operate reliably in the real world.AI-native products — build with LLMs, agents, tool calling, RAG, avatars, multimodal AI, and whatever emerging technologies help us solve the problem best.End-to-end experiences — move across backend, frontend, infrastructure, and production rather than being confined to one layer of the stack.Systems built for reality — take ownership from architecture → implementation → deployment → monitoring, making sure what we build actually works in production.The engineering foundations of Sotant — help define our architecture, technical standards, tooling, and engineering practices as one of the earliest engineers on the team. What We’re Looking ForWe’re looking for an exceptionally strong and resourceful engineer who loves hard problems, learns incredibly fast, and gets things to work. Someone who can look at something they’ve never built before and think: “I’ll figure it out.” Strong engineering fundamentals — 3–5+ years of software engineering experience, with strong full-stack skills and particular depth in backend engineering.Backend & systems depth — strong experience with APIs, Postgres, data modeling, system design, distributed systems, testing, observability, and production reliability.Full-stack ability — comfortable building with TypeScript/Node.js and React and moving across the stack whenever the problem requires it.AI curiosity — excited to build with LLMs, agents, RAG, tool calling, multimodal AI, and new technologies as they emerge. Prior AI experience is valuable, but the ability to learn fast matters more.Production ownership — comfortable with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, Docker, monitoring, and owning what you build all the way into production. Our StackOur current stack includes Python, Temporal, GCP, Terraform, TypeScript / Node.js, React, Postgres, GitHub Actions, and AI/LLM tooling. But the stack is not sacred. We care more about strong engineering fundamentals and choosing the right tool for the problem than experience with every technology we currently use. Strong engineers coming from Python, Go, or TypeScript are welcome. The Founding Engineer MindsetRelentlessly resourceful — ambiguity doesn’t stop you. You investigate, experiment, learn, and figure things out.Own the outcome — you can move from architecture to code to debugging production without waiting for someone else to take over.Pragmatic and fast — you know when to build for scale and when to ship, learn, and iterate.Technically curious — you enjoy exploring unfamiliar technologies and aren’t attached to one stack or way of doing things.Excited by 0 → 1 — you want to help shape the technology, product, and engineering culture of a company from its earliest days. Nice to HaveExperience with early-stage startups, 0→1 products, Temporal or workflow orchestration, AI-native products, LLMs/agents, multimodal AI, or cloud infrastructure is a plus. So are open-source contributions or technically ambitious side projects. The most important requirement: you can look at a problem you’ve never solved before and confidently figure out how to solve it. ExpectationsWe work very hard because we want to win and because we love what we do, but we also believe in independence and ownership. We usually work in person in the office 3-4 days a week because we like sharing ideas and designing together, and moving fast.We typically work 60+ hours per week, not because we have to, but because we genuinely love what we’re building.Each of us comes to the office at the time and days they prefer. Some of us are night owls, some morning people.We also love visiting our customers, so this role involves occasional national and international travel. BenefitsEquity: 0.2% – 0.7% + refreshersCompetitive salaryPerformance bonusImmediate promotions and raises based on performanceYou choose your own laptop and equipmentTeam off-sites! And team events, game nights, dinners, sports, etc. We like having fun together as well.We can sponsor visas.