Founding Software Engineer
Raydar
Founding Software Engineer
Raydar
AI-powered recruiting agency for tech roles
Raydar · New York, United States · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-01
Salary: USD 150,000–220,000
Workplace: on_site
About the company
Our client is a fast-growing software company.
The role
Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Act as an early, senior-level product engineer who owns features from first concept through production. Build customer-facing applications and the backend services behind them, with a focus on AI-driven automation that can be trusted. Work directly with customers to gather requirements and help shape the roadmap.
What you'll do
- Build new functionality end to end, from the backend logic to the user interface people use every day.
- Own the underlying framework that lets AI-driven automation manage context, coordinate tasks, keep state and request human sign-off on important actions.
- Develop backend APIs, third-party integrations, background jobs and data pipelines that turn messy inputs into clean, reliable data.
- Make automated AI features dependable through evaluations based on real workflows, failure tracing, recovery and escalation paths, and model choices informed by production results.
- Build polished web interfaces with React alongside the backend services that power them.
- Speak with customers, gather requirements and, where needed, take ownership of customer-specific workflows.
- Learn from production usage and contribute to the roadmap and strategic decisions.
What we're looking for
- 1 to 3 years of software engineering experience, with strength in product engineering using React and/or LLM-based applications.
- Solid fundamentals in Python or JavaScript/TypeScript, and willingness to become productive in both.
- Hands-on experience launching autonomous AI features into production, including building and debugging the supporting framework.
- Experience working across multiple model providers.
- A substantial project you can discuss in depth, including architecture, trade-offs, limitations and what you would change.
- Close attention to messy details such as missing data, duplicates, unexpected inputs and confusing user experiences.
- Founder mindset with strong ownership, agency and comfort turning vague problems into finished work.
- Good product intuition and taste, with care for the reasons behind what gets built.
- Strong communication skills and comfort working directly with customers.
- Early-stage startup experience is strongly preferred.
Bonus points
- Familiarity with retrieval techniques, data modeling, and evaluation, tracing, cost and permissions practices.
- Experience as a founder or building something real.
Compensation and benefits
- Base salary: USD 150,000 to 220,000 per year
- Equity
- Health, dental and medical coverage
Location and work model
- New York, NY, United States
- On-site
- Full-time
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Raydar is an AI-powered talent acquisition firm that serves tech-focused organizations on a contingency basis, charging client companies only after a successful hire. It uses proprietary AI to identify a large pool of candidates and conducts a short 15-minute AI-driven interview (recorded and transcribed) before human recruiters review materials, provide interview prep, and assist with offers and negotiations. What sets it apart is the blend of automated sourcing and screening with hands-on human oversight and tailored client support. Its goal is to help organizations hire more efficiently by speeding up sourcing while maintaining thorough evaluation and negotiation assistance.
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