Founding Engineer, AI - Shiplight AI

About the role

• Do you agree we’re living through the AI revolution?
• Do you want to be part of it - and run ahead of the curve?
• Are you ready to help 100x productivity?

If so, join us.

At Shiplight AI, our mission is to build the foundation for enterprise-scale automation powered by intelligent agents. We believe every organization should have AI systems that can understand context, take action, and collaborate seamlessly with humans - transforming how work gets done across the enterprise.

Our first mission: fully automate software quality assurance. We’re building state-of-the-art agentic QA systems that integrate deeply into the software development cycle - empowering every product manager, developer, and tester with their own AI QA engineer that validates work in real time.

You’ll be joining a small, mission-driven founding team led by industry veterans, working at the intersection of AI agents, system engineering, and real-world developer productivity.

What You’ll Do

• Build core systems that enable AI agents to autonomously test and reason about complex applications.
• Design, prototype, and ship agentic browser and device automation components.
• Work directly with the founders to define architecture, roadmap, and company culture.
• Experiment with cutting-edge context engineering techniques to improve reasoning and adaptability.
• Move fast - from prototype to production - with high ownership and autonomy.

Who You Are

• Mission-driven - you want to help shape the next era of AI-powered software development.
• Curious and resourceful - you love solving hard, open-ended problems.
• Hands-on builder - you thrive in early-stage environments with high speed and uncertainty.
• Collaborative - you value teamwork and open technical debate.
• You have 1-3 years of startup experience in the AI domain.
• You’re eager to grow into a technical leader and make a massive impact early.

Ideal Skills

• Strong engineering fundamentals and product mindset.
• Proficiency in Python and TypeScript.
• Deep understanding of context engineering and prompt-based reasoning systems.
• Familiarity with browser automation, mobile automation, or QA tooling is a plus.
• Comfortable working across the stack - backend, frontend, and AI interfaces.

Location

• San Francisco Bay Area - hybrid preferred.
• We move fast, iterate face-to-face, and believe early teams build the strongest culture.