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Founding AI Engineer
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What they do
An Artificial Intelligence Engineer develops, tests, and deploys artificial intelligence models. May work closely with data software engineers and data professionals to train and implement AI models into existing systems or develop new applications.
$160,491 / year median in California
Job Description
Founding AI Engineer at FDE Team Founding AI Engineer at FDE Team in San Mateo, California Posted in about 13 hours ago.
Type:
full-time About the job This role is with one of FDE Team's trusted partner companies. We work closely with their teams to understand the technology, culture, and hiring priorities behind each search, so we can provide candidates with the right context before they enter the process. The role We're looking for a Founding AI Engineer who can work across backend engineering and applied AI, with the ownership to take systems from problem definition through production. This is a founding-level opportunity where you'll work closely across engineering and product rather than operating within a narrowly defined function. The work Build resilient, secure, distributed backend systems. Deploy LLMs, VLMs, and other ML models into real-world production environments. Build agentic systems that can reason, plan, and take actions across data. Design RAG pipelines and other systems for unstructured data. Work with structured data, including query planning, semantic modeling, and structured reasoning. Work across multiple infrastructure providers and technologies. Help turn ambiguous problems into production-ready systems. Own meaningful parts of what gets built and shipped. What you bring 6+ years of relevant engineering experience. 2+ years at a recognized big-tech company and 1+ year at a startup. Strong experience building resilient and distributed systems. Strong Python experience; React and experience across multiple languages are valuable. Hands-on experience deploying AI/ML models into production. Experience with LLMs, VLMs, RAG, or agentic systems. Strong product and engineering judgment. Comfort working in fast-moving, ambiguous environments. A genuine interest in taking ownership rather than waiting for detailed specifications. The underlying profile is someone who can sit comfortably across backend systems and applied AI, while carrying founding-level ownership of what gets built and shipped.
Compensation:
$165,000-$250,000 base + meaningful founding-level equity
Employment Type:
Full-time Location:
San Francisco Bay Area (On-site) Interested? Apply through FDE Team to learn more about the opportunity.