Founding AI Engineer / Forward Deployed Engineer
rethink recruitAustin (TX)
Founding AI Engineer / Forward Deployed Engineer
Posted yesterday
rethink recruitAustin (TX)
SENIORITY
Director
SALARY
$200 K
About the role
Serious AIU.S. manufacturing will not win on labor costs alone. Productivity has to improve, but most factories still operate with fragmented data, tribal knowledge, and software that takes months to deploy. We estimate that only about 2% of roughly 140,000 U.S. manufacturing plants are meaningfully AI driven today. The challenge is not inventing another AI model. It is making intelligence practical to deploy and repeatable across plants. What We Are BuildingGENESIS is an AI platform that runs inside the factory, connects to its machines and production processes, and gives operators specific answers about what is happening, why, and what to do next. We can bring an initial production line live in about a week, then extend across a plant in weeks. The goal is to make that process scalable across entire manufacturing networks. The TeamThe founding team includes a former Director of Engineering at C3 AI, LLM post-training experience at Pryon and Labelbox, engineer #6 at Palantir Foundry, and ABB's former global head of AI and analytics across 90 markets. Everyone is expected to bring serious depth in their own domain and build directly.
The Role:
This is a founding-level seat and a critical senior individual contributor role. You will own core AI engineering, work directly with customers, and shape the product. It is not a solutions consulting or sales engineering job.
Build agent harnesses, tool use, context engineering, and reasoning workflows.
Design evaluations, tracing, and feedback systems that make agents measurable and reliable.
Translate real production problems into capabilities that work on the shop floor.
Ship with customers, then turn what works into reusable platform features.
What We Look ForExceptional applied AI engineering, with hands-on experience in modern LLM agents and evaluations.
Strong Python, backend engineering, and a record of shipping technically difficult systems.
Early-stage or zero-to-one experience, high autonomy, speed, and strong engineering judgment.
Comfort working directly with customers. Robotics, physical AI, or manufacturing experience is a bonus, not a requirement.
Compensation And Location:
Starting base around $200K, with a path to $250K to $300K as we complete our next seed financing, subject to funding and individual agreement. Substantial founding-level equity, potentially around 2% for the right candidate. Based in Austin, with relocation possible within approximately six months.
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