Founding AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA | Onsite | Full-Time We're seeking a highly autonomous Founding AI Engineer to join a seed-stage agentic AI company applying multimodal AI to construction and architecture. Its agents analyze blueprints to determine whether buildings are safe, buildable, and compliant with regulations such as ADA, Wildland-Urban Interface, structural, and fire-safety requirements. This is a highly autonomous founding engineering role focused primarily on improving the accuracy of multimodal agents. The core workflow is: HYPOTHESIS → EXPERIMENT → IMPLEMENT → EVALUATE → ANALYZE → ITERATE Most of the engineer's time will be spent designing and running experiments against the evaluation framework rather than interacting with customers. The role can fit either a strong software engineer moving into AI research or an established AI/ML engineer who is also a fast builder. What You'll Own: Multimodal-agent accuracyAI evaluation frameworksAutoresearchExperimental feature developmentExperiment sweepsComputer-vision experimentationEvaluation analysisLightweight data engineeringInternal toolingOccasional web application improvementsBuilding-code domain knowledgeProduct dogfoodingLimited weekly user interaction Requirements 3+ years professional experienceExtremely independent and self-directedAble to unblock themselves without constant guidanceHigh-velocity prototyping and shippingStrong software engineering or AI/ML engineering backgroundRigorous understanding of evaluation/evalsStrong experimental/research instinctsAble to generate hypotheses rather than simply implement assigned ideasComfortable working across different technical areasGenuine alignment with our mission around housingAble to work in-person in San Francisco, CA What We're Looking For: Autonomous vehicle experience, particularly Waymo or ZooxMultimodal AIComputer visionAI evaluation/evalsResearch engineeringHighly regulated AI applicationsMedical/healthcare AILegal AIClimate-tech startup experienceEarly-stage startup engineeringStrong academic backgroundEvidence of independently identifying and solving difficult technical problemsExperience where incorrect model outputs have serious consequencesGenuine interest in housing, architecture, construction, or policy Nice-to-Haves: Self-driving/autonomous vehicle backgroundHighly regulated application-layer AIClimate techComputer visionStrong academic credentialsPolicy/regulatory curiosityExperience interpreting complex technical documents or diagrams Benefits Salary: $160K-$200K Base Equity: 0.5%-2% Employment Type: Full-Time Visa Sponsorship: None Available