Chief Engineer (Principal Engineer)

Our client is a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup building production-grade agentic AI systems for the financial services sector. Currently cash-flow positive with $30M in Series A funding, their platform reaches over 10 million users across 100+ financial institutions. Why You Should Join Work at the rare intersection of startup growth, financial stability, and real-world AI scale. Own a core engineering domain with the equity, autonomy, and impact of an early founding team member. Deploy production-grade AI systems directly into regulated, high-stakes environments rather than building experimental prototypes. What You'll Do Own a core technical domain end-to-end, driving architecture, engineering standards, and business outcomes. Architect and build production systems directly through hands-on technical leadership. Partner closely with founders and product leadership on high-impact architectural decisions. Guide and unblock senior engineers while elevating the overall technical bar. Build systems across AI agents, AI runtimes, conversational/voice AI, data platforms, and AI-native product experiences. Drive an AI-native engineering culture using frontier tools such as Claude Code and Cursor. Required Experience 10+ years of engineering experience, with prior roles as Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Chief Engineer, or Technical Founder. Proven experience building and owning large-scale production systems with 0 to 1 delivery. Deep expertise in AI, LLMs, agentic systems, and modern AI development workflows. Strong hands-on coding and system architecture capabilities. Background in conversational AI, voice AI, RAG, AI evaluation systems, or fintech/regulated financial environments. BS degree in Computer Science or a STEM-related field. Ability to work on-site 5 days a week in San Francisco, CA.