Founding Engineer
Posted 31 Mar 2026
Advertised as “Founding Engineer - TerraByte ”
BranchFactor Summary
The original posting with the fluff stripped out
- Expected experience
- 4–7 yrs
- Management level
- Individual contributor
- Contract
- Full-time
No salary listed for this role.
Founding Engineer
Terrabyte AI · San Francisco, CA · Full-Time
About Terrabyte
Terrabyte is building the intelligence layer for Earth — turning geospatial data into actionable insight at scale. We're an early-stage company moving fast, working directly with founders, and shipping products that matter. If you want to be part of building something from the ground up, this is the role.
The Role
We're looking for a Founding Engineer to help us scale our product and engineering foundation as we grow. You'll be one of the first engineers at Terrabyte, which means you'll have significant ownership over technical direction, architecture decisions, and the culture we build together. This isn't a role for someone who wants to execute a pre-written roadmap — it's for someone who wants to help write it.
You'll work directly with the founders, move fast, and care deeply about building systems that are both production-ready and built to last.
What You'll Do
- Architect and build scalable backend and infrastructure systems that power Terrabyte's core product
- Work across the full stack as needed — owning problems end-to-end rather than handing off at boundaries
- Establish engineering standards, tooling, and practices that will scale with the team
- Collaborate closely with founders on product direction and technical trade-offs
- Leverage modern AI coding tools to move faster and build more
What We're Looking For
- 4–7 years of software engineering experience with strong fundamentals across backend and infrastructure
- Demonstrated track record building and scaling production systems
- Comfortable in early-stage ambiguity — you can define the problem, not just solve it
- Fluent with modern AI development tools (Claude, Cursor, Codex, etc.) alongside traditional engineering practices
- High ownership mindset and a bias toward shipping
Nice to have: Prior startup experience or time at a high-growth engineering org (hyperscaler, strong eng culture company)
Why Terrabyte
- Ground-floor opportunity at a company with a clear mission and early traction
- Work directly with founders — your decisions will shape the company
- Competitive salary + meaningful early-stage equity
- San Francisco, CA (in-person)