Founding Software Engineer (AI & Real-Time Systems)

About AroundHI

AroundHI works with world-class clients across multiple industries to identify and place skilled professionals. We support our partners by recruiting experienced talent who can contribute immediately and grow within project-driven environments.

Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite 5 Days/Week)

Job Type: Full-Time

About the Role

We're looking for a Founding Software Engineer to help build and scale an AI-powered consumer product focused on real-time interaction, memory systems, and next-generation user experiences.

This is an early engineering hire working directly with leadership on some of the most challenging problems in AI product development, including latency optimization, memory architecture, recommendation systems, and real-time voice experiences.

The role spans the full stack and is ideal for someone who enjoys taking ownership, moving quickly, and building products from concept through production.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain production software across the full stack
• Improve performance, latency, and scalability across user-facing systems
• Develop and optimize memory and personalization systems
• Build recommendation and content delivery features
• Integrate and optimize AI models and related infrastructure
• Contribute to real-time communication experiences, including voice and interactive interfaces
• Help establish engineering standards, best practices, and technical direction
• Support future hiring and growth of the engineering team

Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Experience building and shipping production applications end-to-end
• Strong proficiency in at least one backend language such as Python, Go, Rust, or TypeScript
• Solid understanding of distributed systems and scalable application design
• Experience working across both backend and frontend systems
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to operate independently
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced startup environment
• Ability to work onsite in San Francisco

Preferred Qualifications

• Founder, founding engineer, or early-stage startup experience
• Experience building consumer-facing products
• Experience working with AI applications, LLMs, or agent-based systems
• Experience optimizing latency-sensitive systems
• Experience with real-time communication, voice, video, or streaming applications
• Strong product instincts and user-focused engineering approach
• Experience making technical decisions in ambiguous environments

Ideal Background

We're particularly interested in engineers who have built products from the ground up, taken ownership of production systems, and enjoy solving complex technical challenges.

Candidates with startup experience, strong engineering fundamentals, and a demonstrated ability to move quickly without sacrificing quality will stand out.

What Success Looks Like

• Shipping production-ready features quickly and reliably
• Improving system performance, scalability, and user experience
• Taking ownership of technical challenges without extensive direction
• Contributing to both product development and engineering culture
• Helping establish the foundation for a growing engineering team

Pay: $175,000.00 - $250,000.00 per year

Work Location: In person