Founding Engineer

Raydar

$150K — $300K *
Finance & Insurance
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of full-stack software engineering experience
  • Proven ability to build and ship products from zero to one
  • Expertise in React or React Native, TypeScript, Python, and cloud infrastructure
  • Experience with AI agents or agentic workflows in a production environment
  • Track record of owning architecture for secure production systems
  • Strong product judgment and proactive execution as the first technical hire
  • Willingness to work in New York City or San Francisco within 12 to 18 months

Responsibilities

  • Build the MVP end to end across web, mobile, backend, data, and infrastructure
  • Integrate banking-as-a-service partners and financial systems
  • Design architecture for a secure and resilient financial services platform
  • Create workflows that execute financial decisions with compliance guardrails
  • Select technical stacks and frameworks based on fundamental principles
  • Establish engineering standards and collaborate with contract engineers
  • Rapidly ship dependable production systems while adhering to regulatory requirements

Benefits

  • Base salary of $150K-$300K
  • Founding-team equity of 1% to 4%
  • Exceptional scope and influence over product and company direction
  • Visa transfers and sponsorship options for exceptional candidates
  • Remote-first setup for the first 12 to 18 months
  • Transition to in-person or hybrid work arrangement thereafter
  • Full-time position with founding-team emphasis
Full Job Description
We are hiring a Founding Engineer to become the company's first technical hire and build the product from prototype through MVP launch. You will own the architecture, stack, and technical standards across web, mobile, backend, cloud infrastructure, AI agents, and regulated money movement. This is a deeply hands-on 0-to-1 role with a clear path to technical leadership as the team grows.

What you'll do
• Build the MVP end to end across web, mobile, backend, data, and infrastructure
• Integrate banking-as-a-service partners, payment rails, card and lending systems, and KYC and AML services
• Design secure, resilient architecture for an agentic financial-services platform
• Build agentic workflows that make real-money decisions with deterministic logic, auditability, and compliance guardrails
• Select cloud, data, observability, disaster-recovery, and security approaches from first principles
• Set engineering standards for future hires while coordinating with contract engineers
• Ship production systems quickly without compromising trust, reliability, or regulatory requirements

Requirements
• 5 or more years of full-stack software-engineering experience
• A track record of building and shipping a product from zero to one for real users
• End-to-end ability across React or React Native, TypeScript, backend services, Python, and cloud infrastructure
• Hands-on experience building or deploying AI agents or agentic workflows in production
• Experience owning architecture for secure, reliable production systems
• Strong product judgment, bias for action, and comfort operating as the first technical hire
• Ability to work regularly from New York City or San Francisco within 12 to 18 months

Bonus points
• Experience at a US fintech startup in neobanking, banking-as-a-service, cards, lending, or payments rails
• Experience with KYC, AML, money movement, regulated data, or consumer financial products
• Familiarity with LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, and production AI safety patterns
• A computer-science or other technical degree
• Interest in growing into a technical leadership and management role

Benefits
• Base salary of $150K-$300K
• Founding-team equity of 1% to 4%
• Exceptional scope and direct influence over product, architecture, and company direction
• Visa transfers, OPT, and H-1B sponsorship may be available for exceptional candidates
• Remote-first for the first 12 to 18 months
• Transition to regular in-person or hybrid work in New York City or San Francisco after that period
• Full-time founding-team position

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