Job Description

🚀 Founding Product Engineer - Backend

📍 San Francisco - On-site - Full-Time

$140,000-$190,000 + Equity

We’re hiring a Founding Product Engineer (Backend) to join a high-conviction GenAI startup on a mission to reinvent software debugging . Backed by South Park Commons and The House Fund — and already used by customers like Perplexity and GPTZero — they’re building the most intelligent tool ever created for fixing broken software.

This is a backend-leaning product role for someone who thrives on ownership and building. You’ll build high-signal, intelligent systems that span prompts to infrastructure — and play a foundational role in shaping the direction of the company from the ground up.

What You’ll Do

• Design and build intelligent, high-signal debugging features powered by GenAI and custom prompt engineering
• Own backend systems end-to-end — from database design to API development and everything in between
• Build and iterate on Foam’s core tools for software denoising, bug detection, and developer assistive workflows
• Collaborate closely with frontend engineers and the founding team to ship full product experiences
• Write, refine, and evolve prompts that drive the intelligence behind our LLM-powered debugging engine
• Stay on the cutting edge of GenAI by testing and applying the latest models, tools, and research
• Ship quickly, talk to users, and own the outcomes of what you build — from code to impact

What We’re Looking For

• 2–10 years of software engineering experience, with at least 2+ years at a fast-moving startup
• Proven experience building full-stack or backend-heavy product features — especially in GenAI or developer tools
• Deep familiarity with GenAI concepts (e.g. prompt engineering, LLM capabilities), even if not a formal ML background
• Strong backend skills across databases, APIs, and system design — plus enough frontend fluency to collaborate
• Experience with our stack or similar tools: TypeScript, AWS, MongoDB
• Comfortable building in ambiguity, owning problems end-to-end, and working closely with founders
• Strong communicator who thrives in an early-stage, high-trust team environment
• Must be excited to work in-office 5 days a week in San Francisco

Bonus Points For

• Experience building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems or AI agents without relying on frameworks like LangChain
• Hands-on experience managing millions of embeddings in production-grade GenAI tools
• A genuine passion for AI and generative models, even if it’s not on your formal resume
• Previous work on AI-powered debugging or developer productivity tools

What We’re Not Looking For

• Machine Learning scientists or A I/ ML engineers focused on theory
• Candidates with only big tech or enterprise experience
• New grads or bootcamp graduates

If you’re passionate about building groundbreaking AI products that solve real-world software problems, and you want to be a core contributor at an early-stage startup shaping the future of developer tools, we’d love to hear from you.

Apply now to be part of a founding engineering team and help redefine how software is debugged.

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