{"title":"How to hire a founding engineer in San Francisco","url":"https://www.jackandjill.ai/roles/founding-engineer/san-francisco","publisher":"Jack & Jill","slug":"founding-engineer-san-francisco","path":{"role":"founding-engineer","location":"san-francisco"},"published":"2026-10-22","updated":"2026-10-28","locale":"en-US","currency":"USD","role":{"singular":"founding engineer","plural":"founding engineers","article":"a","short":"founding engineer","shortPlural":"founding engineers","shortArticle":"a","people":"engineers"},"place":"San Francisco","hook":"The pool of founding engineers keeps growing.","what":{"definition":"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.","traits":[{"label":"Writes production code","pct":98},{"label":"Works directly with founders","pct":98},{"label":"Owns a broad scope","pct":95},{"label":"Works in person most days","pct":73},{"label":"Builds AI products","pct":65}],"flavours":[{"name":"The AI builder","pct":41,"what":"Builds the product’s AI core, including LLM features, agents and the evals behind them.","aka":"Founding engineer, founding AI engineer, founding machine learning engineer"},{"name":"The product engineer","pct":27,"what":"Ships customer-facing features end to end, across the database, the backend and the interface.","aka":"Founding engineer, founding product engineer, founding design engineer"},{"name":"The infrastructure engineer","pct":22,"what":"Builds the backend, data and infrastructure foundations the product runs on as it grows.","aka":"Founding engineer, founding data engineer, founding backend engineer"}],"flavourNote":"Only 5% of roles are hardware."},"hard":{"answer":"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.","inRole":{"months":["2023-01","2023-02","2023-03","2023-04","2023-05","2023-06","2023-07","2023-08","2023-09","2023-10","2023-11","2023-12","2024-01","2024-02","2024-03","2024-04","2024-05","2024-06","2024-07","2024-08","2024-09","2024-10","2024-11","2024-12","2025-01","2025-02","2025-03","2025-04","2025-05","2025-06","2025-07","2025-08","2025-09","2025-10","2025-11","2025-12","2026-01","2026-02","2026-03","2026-04","2026-05","2026-06","2026-07"],"values":[1153,1146,1180,1191,1253,1311,1367,1405,1425,1461,1492,1517,1632,1633,1681,1750,1814,1908,1961,2029,2073,2114,2157,2204,2336,2364,2423,2478,2566,2704,2795,2902,2943,2986,3041,3072,3189,3174,3218,3228,3260,3268,3307]},"openRoles":{"months":["2025-07","2025-08","2025-09","2025-10","2025-11","2025-12","2026-01","2026-02","2026-03","2026-04","2026-05","2026-06","2026-07","2026-08","2026-09"],"values":[119,121,119,121,131,151,140,141,136,129,134,135,128,131,132]},"timeOpen":{"median":124,"days":[0,15,30,45,60,75,90,105,120,135,150],"stillOpen":[100,92,75.7,73.1,70.8,61.5,57.7,55,51,46.3,40.9]},"estimated":["inRole","openRoles"]},"cost":{"pay":{"p10":120000,"p25":150000,"p50":200000,"p75":240000,"p90":300000},"drivers":{"rows":[{"label":"6–8 years’ experience, not 3–5","effect":11,"lo":6,"hi":16,"moves":true},{"label":"A more prestigious employer","effect":9,"lo":5,"hi":14,"moves":true},{"label":"Elite university","effect":5,"lo":1,"hi":9,"moves":true},{"label":"Has led a team","effect":9,"lo":-1,"hi":18,"moves":false},{"label":"Shipped production AI","effect":5,"lo":-6,"hi":15,"moves":false},{"label":"Already a founding engineer","effect":-6,"lo":-14,"hi":2,"moves":false}]}},"where":{"companies":[{"name":"Amazon","domain":"amazon.com","tag":"The biggest feeder","why":"More Bay Area founding engineers come from Amazon than from any other employer."},{"name":"Meta","domain":"meta.com","tag":"In demand with hiring managers","why":"Hiring managers ask to meet its engineers for founding roles more often than almost anyone else’s."},{"name":"Google","domain":"google.com","tag":"A steady founding pipeline","why":"A regular source of new founding engineers, and rated highly by hiring managers."}],"paths":[{"role":"Students, new grads and other careers","split":{"Enterprise":6,"Startup or scale-up":5.5,"Other":17.4}},{"role":"Startup and scale-up engineers","split":{"Enterprise":3.2,"Startup or scale-up":17.9,"Other":6.2}},{"role":"Big Tech, AI and research engineers","split":{"Enterprise":11.5,"Startup or scale-up":5,"Other":6.2}},{"role":"Founders and engineering leaders","split":{"Enterprise":0.8,"Startup or scale-up":8.6,"Other":4.2}},{"role":"Already founding engineers","split":{"Enterprise":0,"Startup or scale-up":5.7,"Other":1.7}}],"newToRolePct":93,"fromStartupsPct":43},"competitors":[{"tier":"Startup or scale-up","companies":[{"name":"Backbone Systems","domain":"backbonesystems.io","roles":4},{"name":"uRun","domain":"urun.sh","roles":4},{"name":"Kovari","domain":"kovari.com","roles":3},{"name":"General Compute","domain":"generalcompute.com","roles":3},{"name":"Mondrio","domain":"mondrio.io","roles":3}]}],"win":{"answer":"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.","pitch":["Put the founders up front","Show where the role leads","Sell the team","Lead with the AI work"],"wants":{"rows":[{"label":"Working directly with the founders","top":58,"rest":43},{"label":"A path into leadership or founding","top":21,"rest":12},{"label":"Exceptional teammates","top":21,"rest":12},{"label":"AI work","top":88,"rest":79},{"label":"Equity","top":86,"rest":78}]},"workModes":{"title":"More are open to any setup","benchmark":"Other software engineers","highlight":"Open to anything","rows":[{"label":"Office-leaning","top":19,"rest":17},{"label":"Open to anything","top":55,"rest":46},{"label":"Remote-leaning","top":19,"rest":26},{"label":"Remote only","top":7,"rest":10}]}},"city":{"location":"san-francisco","name":"San Francisco Tech","asOf":"2026-09","vacancyRate":16.9,"timeOpen":{"median":65,"days":[0,15,30,45,60,75,90,105,120,135,150],"stillOpen":[100,84.2,72.9,63,53.4,44.8,37.9,32.8,28.8,25.2,22.2]}}}