Founding Engineer ($150K - $250K + Equity) AI Systems for Offline Economy

This role is being recruited by CoffeeSpace on behalf of an anonymous startup building AI-native systems for the offline economy.

We’re identifying a small number of exceptional founding engineers from our network. If there’s a strong fit, we’ll introduce you directly to the founding team.

Location: New York, New York, United States

Compensation: $150K - $250K base + 0.5-2% equity

Employment type: Full-time

Visa: Visa sponsorship not available

About the company

This company equips the offline economy with foundational intelligence, focusing on industries such as AI, B2B, consumer, data, and enterprise. It was founded by top math and science Olympiad competitors from MIT who have led engineering teams at companies like Nuro, Meta, and Glean. With a small team of three and $5 million in funding, the company is poised to reinvent how the $4.5 trillion CPG offline economy handles finance, sales, and operations.

About the role

As a Founding Engineer, you will be one of the first team members, working across the stack from backend data infrastructure to customer-facing products. You will thrive in fast-moving environments and work directly with customers to understand their business objectives. This role offers a rare opportunity to shape both the product and the culture from the ground floor.

What You’ll Do

• Build and deploy harness evaluation platforms to create fast feedback loops around product outcomes
• Develop foundational data infrastructure at terabyte scale, supporting both single and multi-tenant hosting models
• Own the end-to-end delivery of production agents for marquee customers
• Design a reinforcing context layer that captures how companies operate internally
• Define the culture and operating standards for every company investment across product and team

Why This Role Is Compelling

• Join a company with serious pedigree, backed by premier Silicon Valley investors
• Leverage AI to transform the offline economy’s approach to finance, sales, and operations
• Be one of the first employees with significant equity and influence over the company’s direction

The Ideal Candidate

• 3+ years of experience as a generalist engineer comfortable working across the stack
• Proficient in Python, TypeScript, Next.js, GCP, and Terraform
• Enjoys working in ambiguous, fast-paced environments
• Strong communicator who can collaborate directly with customers

This Role Is NOT For You If

• You prefer stable, clearly scoped tasks over dynamic, customer-driven projects
• You require visa sponsorship
• You are not willing to work on-site in New York City

Next steps

1. Apply via this LinkedIn job post
2. We’ll review and reach out if there’s a strong match
3. If aligned, we’ll introduce you directly to the team
4. If this role isn’t the right fit, we may suggest and make introductions to other high-signal startup roles we’re recruiting for, always with your permission.

A quick note on authenticity

This is a real, active role that CoffeeSpace is recruiting for in close partnership with the hiring team. We don’t post speculative roles and work directly with teams on their actual hiring needs.