Founding Platform Engineer

Our client is seeking a founding engineer to serve as the CTO’s direct partner, responsible for establishing the platform practice from the ground up. This role offers an opportunity to build the core infrastructure for an AI-driven solution in the civil and structural engineering space, a market with significant untapped potential. With backing from Venture Capital and a clear path toward near-term acquisition, the company provides a high-impact, in-person environment in SoHo where the successful candidate will shape architecture, culture, and business trajectory.What we're looking forWe need someone with 6+ years of experience in platform engineering and infrastructure who has owned large-scale production systems at high-growth, VC-backed startups. You should be comfortable operating as a technical co-pilot to the CTO in a highly ambiguous, early-stage environment and have a track record of making critical architecture decisions and learning from them. Bonus points if you've scaled multi-tenant platforms during periods of rapid growth.What you'll do:Own the platform architecture and shared infrastructure that powers our forward-deployed engineering teamTake ownership of the delivery path from commit to production: CI/CD, preview environments, test infrastructure, and developer experienceWork directly with the CTO as his right hand to design and build the platform from zeroDefine observability, incident practice, and what "up" means — then instrument and maintain itBuild multi-tenant infrastructure so that onboarding each new engineering firm takes a fraction of the time the last one didOccasionally travel to client sites to connect with the engineers you're building for and understand their workflows firsthandThe base salary for this position is between $ 200,000 and $ 300,000 + Equity.Why Candidates Should JoinCTO's Right Hand: You'll work directly with the CTO as their #2. This isn't a "join a platform team" role. You are the platform team. You'll establish the practice from scratch and own key technical decisions from day one.Massive Untapped Problem Space: A significant portion of engineering workflows remain ripe for automation, yet only a small fraction has been addressed with modern AI solutions. You'll help build the foundational platform that unlocks efficiency and scales impact across the business.Strong Business Momentum: The company has a clear revenue path, ambitious growth plans, and meaningful near-term milestones. This is an opportunity to join a business with real traction and a well-defined strategy.Founding-Level Equity Opportunity: You'll receive meaningful equity with protections designed to preserve the value of your ownership through future financing events.Ground Floor at a Small Team: The engineering team is lean, giving you outsized influence on architecture, technical direction, hiring, and company culture from the earliest stages.Onsite in SoHo, NYC.Interview processCEO Culture Screen (15 minutes)CTO Coffee Chat (30 minutes)Technical Whiteboard Exercise (1 hour)Work Trial (1-2 days)Equal Opportunity StatementWe are an equal opportunity employer and make employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law.