Founding Engineer

Pear

$130K — $180K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years experience shipping full-stack production-ready products
  • Strong proficiency in TypeScript, React, Next.js, backend APIs, and Postgres
  • Experience building desktop applications using Electron, Tauri, or similar technologies
  • Demonstrated ability to deploy LLM-powered features in production
  • Solid understanding of production practices including CI/CD, testing, and observability
  • Familiarity with AI coding tools such as Claude Code or Codex
  • Customer-centric mindset, focusing on real user needs

Responsibilities

  • Write and ship production code for real pilot customers
  • Engage directly with customers on feedback and pilot calls
  • Implement product changes based on user feedback swiftly
  • Influence the product roadmap through direct contributions
  • Own features from prototype stages to full production
  • Develop core product interfaces: employee guidance UX and manager dashboard
  • Set up telemetry to validate insights and product functionality

Benefits

  • Competitive salary
  • Meaningful early equity in the company
  • Opportunity for career growth into engineering leadership
  • Involvement in shaping engineering culture
  • Collaborative environment with top AI and product minds
Full Job Description
The Role

This is not a typical engineering role. You'll be our founding engineer, with an outsized role in how the product, company, and engineering culture evolve.

You'll write code, but you'll also:
  • Talk to customers and join pilot calls
  • Turn feedback into product changes the same week
  • Influence the roadmap directly
  • Help close deals by building what matters fast
  • Own features end-to-end, from prototype to production

In your first 90 days, you'll:
  • Ship production code to real pilot customers in your first weeks
  • Build the core product surfaces: employee-facing guidance UX and manager dashboard
  • Work across the stack (TypeScript, React, Next.js, Postgres, Electron/Tauri)
  • Wire up LLM features that actually work in production, not just in a demo
  • Set up the telemetry and eval systems that make our insights credible

In 6 months, you'll:
  • Own large product surface areas end-to-end
  • Help convert pilots into paying contracts with your product work
  • Drive the reliability and quality bar that enterprise buyers expect
  • Start shaping engineering culture and hiring as we grow the team

In 12 months, you'll:
  • Architect key parts of the system
  • Be known by name to our biggest customers
  • Opportunity to lead engineering as we scale past our seed round

Competitive salary, meaningful early equity, and the chance to grow into an engineering leadership role as we scale.

Who We Want
  • Shipping full-stack production-ready products in fast-moving environments
  • Strong with TypeScript, React, Next.js, backend APIs, and Postgres
  • Comfortable building across web and desktop (Electron, Tauri, or similar)
  • Has built LLM-powered features in production, not just prototyped with them
  • Production habits: CI/CD, testing, observability, pragmatic system design
  • Native with AI coding agents (Claude Code/Codex)
  • Obsessive about customer needs, not just abstract "users"
  • Comfortable debugging, writing tests, talking to customers, and jumping on a pilot call

Bonus: Experience with building browser-based automation tools or developer/enterprise tools.

The Team

You'll join Johnny Chang (Stanford top AI agent research, taught most Stanford AI flagship courses with professors like Andrew Ng) and Angelina You (Meta data science, Stanford MS Eng, product growth at CircleCI) as the founding engineer. Product, engineering, and customer work all run through the same room.

We're backed by One Way Ventures, Pear VC, Peterson Ventures, and many more institutional funds and strategic angels.


How to Apply

Email with:
  • Your GitHub
  • Your Resume
  • 2 to 3 links to things you've shipped (projects, products, demos, write-ups)
  • A short note on the most impressive thing you've built

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