Founding Engineer
About this role
Empathic Labs is building a real-time AI-enabled platform to digitize human connection. This founding engineer role is a unique 1-of-1 position alongside a Thiel Fellow founder, directly shaping the product and engineering culture as the company moves quickly. You’ll help establish the technical foundation for a bold consumer product focused on meaningful, scalable interactions.
What youll do
- Build across the full application — work on all aspects with the founder, design, and other engineers.
- Create memory, retrieval, proactivity, and related systems to improve AI presence and responsiveness.
- Integrate real-time video and audio models, both internal and external, to enable dynamic interactions.
- Set the engineering bar and help recruit world-class talent.
- Dogfood the product extensively to ensure quality and real user value.
What Empathic Labs is looking for
- High energy, extremely intelligent and bright.
- Proven entrepreneurial spirit in startups or other fast-moving environments.
- Strong CS fundamentals.
- Done technically complex side projects.
- 1+ years of experience in software engineering.
- Bonus: experience with real-time media, vision/video models, memory systems, or audio-focused projects.
Company at a glance
San Francisco-based, engineering-first company building AI conversations that feel like real people, with real-time, native integration in FaceTime and iMessage. Backed by BoxGroup and led by a Thiel Fellow and YC alum who recently sold his company, it digitizes connection.
Culture & values
The company intends to be an engineering-first organization of the highest quality.
The work environment will be fully in-person in San Francisco.
The team culture envisions a room full of only the smartest people you've met, doing the best work of your life.
Know someone who'd be great for this?