Founding Engineering Lead

Read straight from AnswerThis's careers page, verified 1d ago.Seekless can tailor your résumé to it.

Seekless can write your résumé for this posting first.

Before you apply

Salary$170k – $240k

LocationSan Francisco

Work modeon-site

Typefull-time

SeniorityLead

DepartmentTechnical Staff

EquityIncluded

Company size11–50 people

PostedSep 2, 2026 · 2mo ago

Verified live1d ago

At a glanceSummarised by Seekless from the posting.

Built AI agent systems in production

Led teams at startups

Shipped under uncertainty, without perfect specs, on tight timelines

Own technical architecture and product velocity end to end

Work directly with enterprise customers

Make hard scope calls with limited information

Measure success by business impact

Build the engineering team over time

Experience in large engineering organizations with established processes should not apply

Skills

Next.js

Python

FastAPI

retrieval

agents

About the company

AnswerThis is building the research workspace for scientific knowledge inside enterprises. Our agents search, synthesize, and draft evidence-based research autonomously. More than 200,000 researchers use the platform across universities and Fortune 500 companies. We’re YC-backed, growing fast, and small on purpose.

What we’re solving

Trillions of dollars flow into global R&D every year. Researchers still spend enormous amounts of time manually finding papers, writing literature reviews, and assembling evidence packages. This work decides whether new drugs and medical devices reach patients. We’re turning it into a living, compounding system.

Requirements

Who we’re looking for

A senior engineer who has built AI agent systems in production and led teams at startups. You have shipped under uncertainty, without perfect specs, on timelines that did not make sense on paper.

About the role

You will own the technical architecture and product velocity end to end, from customer problem to deployed solution. You will work directly with enterprise customers, make hard scope calls with limited information, and measure success by business impact.

You will build the engineering team over time. You know what works at three engineers breaks at ten, and you want to design that transition.

Responsibilities

What you’ll own

• Architecture and execution across Next.js, Python/FastAPI, retrieval, agents, and production infrastructure

• Fast product iteration with researchers and enterprise customers

• Reliability, quality, and observability for high-stakes scientific workflows

• The engineering culture and team we build next

Hiring process

Interview process

• 20-minute culture screen

• One-hour technical deep dive

• Take-home

• Two-week paid trial

Compensation

$170,000–$240,000+ base with 0.2%–0.5% equity.

This role is in person in San Francisco. If you have only operated inside large engineering organizations with established processes, or optimize for elegance over business impact, this is not the right fit.