Lead a small, high-performing engineering team in a fast-growing AI startup, owning day-to-day execution, roadmaps, and architectural decisions. Remain hands-on with production code 20-30% of the time while guiding senior engineers and partnering with leadership. Requires 4-12 years of experience, strong Python backend skills, and formal management of 4+ engineers.
Key Highlights
Key Responsibilities
Technical Skills Required
Benefits & Perks
Nice to Have
Job Description
Engineering Lead / Engineering Manager (San Francisco)
***On-site in San Francisco, If not, must willing to relocate. Open to visa transfers.
A fast-growing early-stage AI startup is looking for a Tech Lead with 4–12 years of experience to own day-to-day engineering execution. You'll formally lead 4+ engineers while remaining 20–30% hands-on with code. The ideal candidate spent several years as a senior engineer at a leading tech company or scale-up, followed by an EM or Tech Lead role at a fast-moving startup. This is 5 days/week on-site in San Francisco.
Comp: $240K–$260K base + equity
Stack: Python, LLMs, Cloud Technologies, Full-Stack Development
🛠️ You will:
- Lead the day-to-day execution of a small, high-performing engineering team.
- Own engineering priorities, roadmaps, 1:1s, and project delivery.
- Guide architectural decisions and maintain a high bar for code quality, performance, and system design.
- Introduce processes and engineering practices that help the team ship quickly without sacrificing quality.
- Partner directly with senior leadership and customer-facing teams on technical and business priorities.
- Remain hands-on, contributing production code roughly 20–30% of your time.
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🧩 100% Required:
- 4–12 years of software engineering experience with a strong hands-on IC foundation.
- Experience formally managing 4+ software engineers.
- Strong backend engineering experience with Python and cloud technologies.
- Ability to evaluate architecture, code quality, performance, scalability, and technical tradeoffs.
- Comfortable balancing people leadership with meaningful hands-on engineering work.
- Highly structured, proactive, and strong at prioritizing competing projects in a demanding startup environment.
- Strong communication skills and the confidence to work directly with senior company leadership.
- Willing to work 5 days/week on-site in San Francisco.
🪶 Other Skills:
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- Several years as a Senior/Staff Engineer at a leading technology company or high-growth scale-up.
- More recent experience as an Engineering Manager or Tech Lead at an early-stage startup.
- Experience with LLMs, conversational AI, AI agents, or other production AI systems.
- Founder, early-stage startup, or management consulting experience.
- Strong business acumen and an understanding of how engineering decisions affect customers and revenue.
🧬 How The Company Works
- High-growth – ARR doubled in the first half of the year, with another 2x growth target for the second half.
- Early-stage – join a small, funded team where engineering leadership has an immediate impact.
- High ownership – take responsibility for engineering execution rather than simply managing individual projects.
- Hands-on leadership – technical leaders are expected to stay close to the architecture and codebase.
- Fast-moving – priorities evolve quickly and engineers are expected to take initiative rather than wait for direction.
- High standards – the environment rewards strong execution, clear communication, and people who make the engineers around them better.
- AI-native – building production AI systems that automate real-world customer interactions.
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