Founding Product Engineer - Backend

Founding Product Engineer - Backend

San Francisco - On-site - Full-Time

$140,000-$190,000 + Equity

We’re hiring a Founding Product Engineer (Backend) to join a high-conviction GenAI startup on a mission to reinvent software debugging. Backed by South Park Commons and The House Fund — and already used by customers like Perplexity and GPTZero — they’re building the most intelligent tool ever created for fixing broken software.

This is a backend-leaning product role for someone who thrives on ownership and building. You’ll build high-signal, intelligent systems that span prompts to infrastructure — and play a foundational role in shaping the direction of the company from the ground up.

What You’ll Do

Design and build intelligent, high-signal debugging features powered by GenAI and custom prompt engineering

Own backend systems end-to-end — from database design to API development and everything in between

Build and iterate on Foam’s core tools for software denoising, bug detection, and developer assistive workflows

Collaborate closely with frontend engineers and the founding team to ship full product experiences

Write, refine, and evolve prompts that drive the intelligence behind our LLM-powered debugging engine

Stay on the cutting edge of GenAI by testing and applying the latest models, tools, and research

Ship quickly, talk to users, and own the outcomes of what you build — from code to impact

What We’re Looking For

2–10 years of software engineering experience, with at least 2+ years at a fast-moving startup

Proven experience building full-stack or backend-heavy product features — especially in GenAI or developer tools

Deep familiarity with GenAI concepts (e.g. prompt engineering, LLM capabilities), even if not a formal ML background

Strong backend skills across databases, APIs, and system design — plus enough frontend fluency to collaborate

Experience with our stack or similar tools: TypeScript, AWS, MongoDB

Comfortable building in ambiguity, owning problems end-to-end, and working closely with founders

Strong communicator who thrives in an early-stage, high-trust team environment

Must be excited to work in-office 5 days a week in San Francisco

Bonus Points For

Experience building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems or AI agents without relying on frameworks like LangChain

Hands-on experience managing millions of embeddings in production-grade GenAI tools

A genuine passion for AI and generative models, even if it’s not on your formal resume

Previous work on AI-powered debugging or developer productivity tools

What We’re Not Looking For

Machine Learning scientists or A I/ ML engineers focused on theory

Candidates with only big tech or enterprise experience

New grads or bootcamp graduates

If you’re passionate about building groundbreaking AI products that solve real-world software problems, and you want to be a core contributor at an early-stage startup shaping the future of developer tools, we’d love to hear from you.