Founding AI Engineer - Careers

We are looking for a pragmatic and experienced AI Engineer to join our founding engineering team. This is a unique opportunity to architect the intelligence layer of Chainloop, harnessing SDLC data end-to-end to drive our customers’ continuous transformation.

Our vision is to build a platform that allows our customers to gather, secure, and contextualize all their SDLC data. As our first dedicated AI hire, your role is to bring this vision to life. You will not only build AI features but also establish the foundations and best practices that will define how we build AI at Chainloop. You will architect, guide, and work hands-on with the core engineering team to build features that allow users to “chat with their infrastructure,” automatically detect supply chain anomalies, and generate compliance narratives using LLMs.

Crucially, you will also apply AI to simplify the adoption journey. You will build intelligence that helps customers model their most complex SDLC realities into Chainloop, automating the configuration and onboarding process so that “getting started” feels like magic, not a migration project.

We believe that “simple things should be simple; complex things should be possible.” You will apply this philosophy to our AI features—ensuring that onboarding a new service is effortless, while deep, forensic queries into the supply chain remain fully accessible.

This is not a research role. We are an ambitious, async-first startup, and we need a builder who can take AI features from a Python notebook prototype to a robust, scalable production service. You will work hands-on with our core backend engineering team (Go), architecting, implementing, and scaling these AI capabilities together.

What We’re Looking For

Production AI & LLM Experience: Proven experience building and shipping LLM-powered applications to production (RAG, vector DBs, prompt engineering).
Onboarding Enabler: You see AI as a tool to unlock new features and insights, removing friction and enabling customers to get value from Chainloop faster.
Product & Roadmap Shaper: As a founding member, you will actively influence the product roadmap based on user feedback, customer insights, and your understanding of what AI can unlock.
End-to-End Data Fluency: You can look at the full SDLC lifecycle and identify how to harness that data to drive continuous improvement.
Strong Software Engineering Foundation: You are a software engineer first. You have 5+ years of experience building backend systems. Expertise in Python or other backend languages is fully acceptable, provided you have a strong desire to learn and contribute to our core Go codebase. Existing Go proficiency is a strong plus.
Security Mindset: A genuine interest in software security and secure-by-design principles.
Problem-Solver & Culture Builder: Excellent analytical skills and a collaborative spirit.

Dos (The Actions We Expect)

DO ship value, not just models. Your success is measured by features that help customers onboard faster and understand their data better. Prioritize pragmatic solutions over theoretical perfection.
DO take full, end-to-end ownership. From data ingestion pipelines to the final user inference, you own the architectural decisions and collaborate with the core engineering team to implement. If the retrieval quality is poor, you fix the chunking; if latency is high, you optimize the DB—working hands-on with the team.
DO be an async-first communicator. Default to excellent, proactive, and well-organized writing. In an async culture, over-communication is key.
DO leverage AI & automation. Actively integrate these tools into your own workflow and the product’s core user experience to multiply productivity.
DO build foundations & raise the bar. Establish AI development standards, patterns, and practices that the team can build upon. Mentor engineers on AI/ML best practices and elevate the team’s AI capabilities.

Key Attributes for Success

To succeed in this role, you should embody the following traits:

Pragmatic Builder Over Perfectionist: Architects and works hands-on with the team to ship production-ready AI features from notebook to scale; prioritizes working solutions over theoretical elegance.
End-to-End Owner: Takes architectural responsibility from data pipelines to user inference; works hands-on with the core team to fix root causes (poor chunking, slow DB) rather than working around them.
Friction Eliminator: Obsessed with using AI to remove user pain points; designs for “simple things simple, complex things possible.”
Async Excellence & Clarity: Proactive written communicator in async-first culture; documents decisions, shares context, and avoids knowledge silos.
Software Engineer First, AI Second: Strong backend fundamentals; capable of contributing to Go codebase and building robust production services beyond ML.
Security-Conscious & Data-Aware: Applies secure-by-design principles to AI features; understands SDLC data deeply to extract maximum value.
Foundation Builder & Team Multiplier: Establishes AI development standards and practices; mentors team on AI/ML best practices and raises the bar for AI engineering across the company.

Why You’ll Love Working With Us

Foundational Impact: Be one of the very first engineers, directly shaping the product, technology, and culture of an early-stage company. Your work will be critical to our success.
Mission-Driven Work: Contribute directly to our mission: helping companies build and ship trusted software faster.
Cutting-Edge Technology: Work with modern technologies like Go, Kubernetes, cloud-native tools, and explore applications of AI. You’ll be at the forefront of innovation in the DevSecOps space.
Remote-First: We are a distributed team, offering you the flexibility to work from anywhere.
Competitive Salary, Equity, and Benefits: We offer a competitive compensation package, including meaningful equity.

Ready for the challenge? Then let’s talk!