Founding Machine Learning Engineer

Founding ML EngineerLocation: San Francisco, CA Company Stage: Early-Stage (YC-backed, Profitable, High-Growth) Office Type: Onsite Salary: $150,000 – $300,000 + Equity (0.10% – 0.50%)This fast-growing, venture-backed startup is building the core infrastructure layer that enables AI agents to access, understand, and act on real-time internet data. Instead of traditional search workflows designed for humans, the platform provides APIs that allow AI systems to retrieve high-fidelity, structured data directly from source systems.The company has achieved strong early traction—scaling to millions in ARR within its first year—and is already serving enterprise customers. Backed by leading investors including Y Combinator and top-tier venture firms, the team is now focused on pushing the boundaries of applied machine learning to power the next generation of AI-native data systems.What You Will DoOwn the end-to-end development of core ML systems—from research and modeling to production deploymentDesign and train models for information retrieval, entity resolution, classification, and structured data extractionBuild systems that transform messy, multilingual web-scale data into structured, queryable intelligenceDevelop embedding models, ranking systems, and retrieval pipelines for high-precision search and matchingApply transformer architectures and modern NLP techniques to real-world data problemsLeverage LLMs for tasks such as extraction, classification, and data enrichment at scaleContinuously evaluate and improve model performance using rigorous experimentation and metricsWork closely with engineering and product teams to integrate ML systems into production APIsIdeal Background3+ years of experience building and shipping production ML systems, particularly in NLP, information retrieval, or entity resolutionStrong hands-on experience with Python and PyTorchDeep understanding of transformer architectures, including training and fine-tuning encoder modelsExperience building retrieval systems, classifiers, or embedding-based systemsFamiliarity with representation learning techniques (e.g., contrastive learning, metric learning)Experience applying LLMs to structured data problems (e.g., extraction, classification, generation)Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to work on ambiguous, large-scale data challengesHigh ownership mindset with a strong bias toward execution in fast-paced environmentsPreferredExperience with entity resolution or record linkage at scaleBackground in multilingual or cross-lingual NLPExperience building taxonomies, ontologies, or knowledge systemsFamiliarity with distributed training on GPU clustersExperience scaling LLM inference pipelines in productionResearch publications or open-source contributions in NLP/IRCompensation and BenefitsBase salary: $150K – $300KEquity: 0.10% – 0.50% (founding-level ownership)Visa sponsorship availableOpportunity to join at an early stage with strong product-market fit and rapid growthHigh ownership role with direct impact on core product and company trajectoryWork alongside experienced founders and top-tier investorsThis role is ideal for ML engineers who want to operate at the frontier of applied NLP and retrieval—owning core intelligence systems that power how AI agents interact with real-world data at scale.