Founding Engineer
About the job
- Strong technical and computer science fundamentals.
- Experience building production-grade backend or full-stack systems.
- Deep understanding of scalability challenges and good system design.
- Ability to take ambiguous requirements, conduct research, analyze tradeoffs, and own project execution end-to-end while balancing speed and reliability.
- Strong communication skills and a bias toward ownership.
- At least 2 years of experience as a Software Engineer.
- Prior experience at startups or high-growth companies.
- Experience with applied artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence research, specifically in post-training or reinforcement learning.
About the company
MangoDesk provides an AI-powered platform to source, screen, and manage domain experts who evaluate and improve AI models. The platform automates the recruitment process, including screening resumes, conducting initial interviews with an AI interviewer that handles language and expertise assessments, and simulating job tasks to predict a candidate’s potential for success. It serves clients who need high-quality, context-rich data for AI model development across niche areas like law and finance, and helps these clients find and manage expert talent at scale. Unlike many recruiters, MangoDesk focuses on domain-specific experts and uses predictive evaluation to match talent to exact project needs. The company aims to help teams obtain ready-to-use expert input and data by efficiently sourcing and coordinating specialized talent, ultimately accelerating AI model development.
Company Size
1-10
Company Stage
Seed
Total Funding
$130K
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2025
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- MangoDesk said in August 2026 it raised an oversubscribed seed round from top-tier VCs.
- Its website says hiring spans software engineers, researchers, and operators as of August 2026.
- Scoutify tracked one open role in May 2026, showing active commercial execution.
What critics are saying
- Scale AI, Surge AI, and Mercor compress margins by copying MangoDesk's expert-sourcing workflow.
- If frontier labs internalize eval pipelines, MangoDesk loses its core buyer segment.
- A small team of one to ten employees limits enterprise delivery and support capacity.
What makes MangoDesk unique
- YC Summer 2025 and ex-Scale AI founders anchor MangoDesk's credibility with AI labs.
- Its platform auto-builds bespoke annotation pipelines, instructions, and QA from natural-language prompts.
- MangoDesk combines vetted expert pools with RL environments for evaluation and post-training data.
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