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Talent intelligence · Updated

Hiring guide

The pool of founding engineers keeps growing. Everything you need to hire one: how scarce they are, what to offer, where to look, who you’re up against and what wins them.

A founding engineer is one of the first engineers at an early-stage startup, building the product hands-on alongside the founders. They own whole areas of the product and help decide what gets built.

What the job involves

Share of open founding engineer roles in San Francisco that ask for it

  • Writes production code
  • Works directly with founders
  • Owns a broad scope
  • Works in person most days
  • Builds AI products

3 kinds of founding engineer

The title covers 3 different jobs. Know which one you’re hiring before you search. Only 5% of roles are hardware.

  1. 41%

    of open roles

    The AI builder

    Builds the product’s AI core, including LLM features, agents and the evals behind them.

    Also titled: Founding engineer, founding AI engineer, founding machine learning engineer

  2. 27%

    of open roles

    The product engineer

    Ships customer-facing features end to end, across the database, the backend and the interface.

    Also titled: Founding engineer, founding product engineer, founding design engineer

  3. 22%

    of open roles

    The infrastructure engineer

    Builds the backend, data and infrastructure foundations the product runs on as it grows.

    Also titled: Founding engineer, founding data engineer, founding backend engineer

  • 3,300

    founding engineers working in San Francisco

  • 130

    open founding engineer roles

  • 124 days

    median time a role stays open

  • $200k

    median expected base

01

How hard is this hire?

Under 4% of founding engineer positions in San Francisco are open roles, far below the San Francisco Tech benchmark, yet those roles take 8 weeks longer to fill.

  • People in the role

    3,300

    founding engineers working in San Francisco, July 2026

    1,0002,0003,0004,000Jan ’23Sep ’23May ’24Jan ’25Sep ’25Jul ’263,307
    Jul ’263,307
    founding engineers working in San Francisco, by month
    Monthfounding engineers
    January 20231,153
    February 20231,146
    March 20231,180
    April 20231,191
    May 20231,253
    June 20231,311
    July 20231,367
    August 20231,405
    September 20231,425
    October 20231,461
    November 20231,492
    December 20231,517
    January 20241,632
    February 20241,633
    March 20241,681
    April 20241,750
    May 20241,814
    June 20241,908
    July 20241,961
    August 20242,029
    September 20242,073
    October 20242,114
    November 20242,157
    December 20242,204
    January 20252,336
    February 20252,364
    March 20252,423
    April 20252,478
    May 20252,566
    June 20252,704
    July 20252,795
    August 20252,902
    September 20252,943
    October 20252,986
    November 20253,041
    December 20253,072
    January 20263,189
    February 20263,174
    March 20263,218
    April 20263,228
    May 20263,260
    June 20263,268
    July 20263,307

  • Open roles

    130

    founding engineer roles open in San Francisco, September 2026

    100200Jul ’25Oct ’25Jan ’26Apr ’26Sep ’26132
    Sep ’26132
    Open founding engineer roles in San Francisco, by month
    Monthfounding engineer roles
    July 2025119
    August 2025121
    September 2025119
    October 2025121
    November 2025131
    December 2025151
    January 2026140
    February 2026141
    March 2026136
    April 2026129
    May 2026134
    June 2026135
    July 2026128
    August 2026131
    September 2026132

  • Vacancy rate

    3.7%

    of founding engineer positions in San Francisco are open roles, July 2026

    10.0%20.0%Jul ’25Oct ’25Jan ’26Apr ’26Jul ’26Benchmark – San Francisco Tech: 16.9%3.7%
    Jul ’263.7%
    Vacancy rate for founding engineers in San Francisco, by month, against Benchmark – San Francisco Tech (16.9% in September 2026)
    Monthfounding engineer vacancy rate
    July 20254.1%
    August 20254.0%
    September 20253.9%
    October 20253.9%
    November 20254.1%
    December 20254.7%
    January 20264.2%
    February 20264.3%
    March 20264.1%
    April 20263.8%
    May 20263.9%
    June 20264.0%
    July 20263.7%

  • Time to fill

    124 days

    median time a founding engineer role stays open

    50%100%Day 0Day 30Day 60Day 90Day 120Day 15041%
    Day 15041%Benchmark – San Francisco Tech: 22%
    Share of roles in San Francisco still open each number of days after posting
    Days after postingfounding engineer rolesBenchmark – San Francisco Tech
    Day 0100%100%
    Day 1592%84%
    Day 3076%73%
    Day 4573%63%
    Day 6071%53%
    Day 7562%45%
    Day 9058%38%
    Day 10555%33%
    Day 12051%29%
    Day 13546%25%
    Day 15041%22%

02

How much to offer

Expected base salary

When to offer more

Extra base pay for each, all else equal

  • 6–8 years’ experience, not 3–5+11%
  • A more prestigious employer+9%
  • Elite university+5%
  • No clear effect on payHas led a team+9%
  • Shipped production AI+5%
  • Already a founding engineer−6%

03

Where to look

  1. Number 1: Amazon

    The biggest feeder

    More Bay Area founding engineers come from Amazon than from any other employer.

  2. Number 2: Meta

    In demand with hiring managers

    Hiring managers ask to meet its engineers for founding roles more often than almost anyone else’s.

  3. Number 3: Google

    A steady founding pipeline

    A regular source of new founding engineers, and rated highly by hiring managers.

Where new founding engineers come from

93%

weren’t founding engineers in their last job

43%

joined from a startup or scale-up

  • Students, new grads and other careers29%
  • Startup and scale-up engineers27%
  • Big Tech, AI and research engineers23%
  • Founders and engineering leaders14%
  • Already founding engineers7%

04

Who you’re competing with

The enterprises, and the startups and scale-ups, that posted the most founding engineer roles in San Francisco in the 6 months to October 2026.

  1. Backbone Systems4 roles
  2. uRun4 roles
  3. Kovari3 roles
  4. General Compute3 roles
  5. Mondrio3 roles

05

How to win them

Ownership and hard technical problems get you in the door. To win the most in-demand founding engineers, lead with the founders and where the role leads.

What the most in-demand founding engineers want

  1. 1

    Put the founders up front

  2. 2

    Show where the role leads

  3. 3

    Sell the team

  4. 4

    Lead with the AI work

  • Working directly with the founders
  • A path into leadership or founding
  • Exceptional teammates
  • AI work
  • Equity

More are open to any setup

55%

of founding engineers are open to any setup

46%

of other software engineers

  • Office-leaning
  • Open to anything
  • Remote-leaning
  • Remote only

Skip the 124‑day search

Brief Jill, the AI agent for hiring, on your founding engineer role. She’ll introduce you to engineers in Jack’s network who are open to a move.

Hire founding engineers with Jill

About this guide

The data
This guide combines publicly available data on jobs and careers with our own data from Jack’s network of candidates and the companies hiring with Jill.
Who counts
We decide who is a founding engineer by the work a job or career describes, not just its title, and apply that definition to people and job postings alike.
Kinds of company
Startups and scale-ups are private tech companies founded since 2005. Enterprises are listed, owned by a listed company, or larger than 5,000 staff.
Vacancy rate and time to fill
Vacancy rate is open roles as a share of all positions, filled and open. Time to fill follows each role from when it’s posted until it closes, and allows for roles that are still open. The Benchmark – San Francisco Tech line measures San Francisco’s tech startups and scale-ups the same way.
Pay
Pay is the base salary candidates in and near the role say they expect, weighted to match the seniority of the roles being hired. The premiums compare people with similar experience.
What wins them
We compare the profiles of people hiring managers ask to meet with those they passed on.