Founding AI Engineer (Knowledge Graphs & Applied AI)

Founding AI Engineer (Knowledge Graphs & Applied AI)

NYC (hybrid, 2 days/week in office) · $200k+ base · founding equity

A stealth, well-backed startup building a portfolio of AI products for talent and career development is hiring its first engineer beyond the founder. We're partnering with them on this search (client revealed once there's a strong mutual fit).

Why this role is different

This is a graph-led engineering role. Plenty of teams want "applied AI" generalists - this one is built around knowledge graphs and semantic systems as the core differentiator. AI fluency is expected; deep graph + software-engineering craft is what sets you apart.

You won't get a backlog. You'll pick what you own, make architectural calls, and decide what ships. It's building the train while it's moving - energizing if that's your thing, terrifying if it's not.

What you'll work on

• Graph-based retrieval systems - knowledge graphs, semantic modeling, embedding-based retrieval (the stack is flexible; transferable graph understanding matters more than a specific tool)

• Applied AI for talent and careers - agents, retrieval, ranking, methodology-informed reasoning

• A shared agent platform, alongside product work

• Early-stage building: products going from zero to one, finding product-market fit by talking to users and shipping fast

What we're looking for

• ~7+ years of engineering, with applied AI shipped in production

• Real, hands-on depth in graphs - knowledge graphs, graph databases, ontology / semantic data modeling, or embedding-based retrieval (not as a tag, as work you've actually built)

• Strong software architecture instincts - design patterns, system design, knowing when to apply which

• A builder who's comfortable in startup ambiguity - you'd rather ship and learn than spec and wait

• A senior individual contributor who still writes code (this is a building role, not a management one)

Nice to have

• Early-stage startup experience, or founded something yourself

• Background in search / ranking / recommender-systems infrastructure

• Worked in talent, HR, recruiting, or career-development products

• Curious about psychometrics or the science of how people perform at work

Logistics

• Base from $200k, scaling with experience · founding-team equity band

• NYC area, hybrid — ~2 days/week in office (tri-state, commutable)

• Short, respectful process: a founder conversation, a paid working session on a real problem, and one or two technical deep-dives. We want the right person, not a gauntlet.

Interested, or know someone who'd fit? DM me or apply below.