Founding AI Engineer | Quintess
Work with a cutting-edge Silicon Valley startup redefining how industrial maintenance is done with AI.
Location: San Francisco (hybrid, 3 days/week) or remote within the US
Compensation: $150K–$225K + equity
About Quintess.аі
We’re supporting a fast-growing AI startup backed by top-tier Silicon Valley investors.
Their mission: build agentic AI systems that eliminate tedious admin work for industrial technicians — starting with a voice AI agent that listens, thinks, and takes action in real time.
The product integrates directly with enterprise maintenance systems (EAM/ERP), helping technicians fix complex assets faster by automating reporting, fault classification, and part ordering.
They’re already live with some of the largest global rail operators in the US and Europe — and expanding rapidly.
The Role
We’re looking for a Founding AI Engineer who combines deep technical ability with a builder mindset. As one of the first five engineers, you’ll shape the company’s AI architecture, design and deploy new features, and work directly with customers to solve high-impact real-world problems.
What you’ll do:
Build and adapt real-time AI agents for new customer use cases (often from scratch).
Design and ship RAG-powered voice flows and conversational features.
Improve the latency, reliability, and robustness of the real-time AI stack.
Partner directly with users to understand workflows and iterate fast.
Turn bespoke builds into reusable platform blueprints for scale.
What We’re Looking For
Must-have:
4–10 years in AI / backend engineering, ideally in startups or fast-moving environments.
Strong in Python, LLM integration, and cloud deployment (AWS/GCP).
Experience building AI agents or real-time systems (speech-to-text, TTS, or streaming).
Understanding of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and data pipelines.
Passion for solving real problems — not just training models — and learning from users.
Nice-to-have:
Prior experience with LangChain, LlamaIndex, or voice orchestration frameworks.
Experience integrating AI into enterprise systems or industrial environments.
Early-stage / founding engineer experience.
Why This Role Is Exceptional
🧠 Cutting-edge AI – work at the intersection of voice, reasoning, and real-time execution.
🛠️ 0→1 Impact – shape the product and engineering culture from the ground up.
🌍 Massive market – industrial maintenance is one of the last untouched by AI.
🚀 Live customers, real deployments – this isn’t a demo lab; it’s production AI.
About the Process
You’ll go through a lean, high-signal interview flow designed for builders:
Intro Call – with A-Players Recruiting (45 min)
Deep-Dive Interview – with the CEO/CTO (60 min)
Short Technical Assignment – (~3 hrs, flexible)
Final Chat – to align on vision and ownership
📩 Apply now if you thrive on building real-time, AI-driven systems that actually do things — not just predict text.
- Department
- Tech
- Locations
- San Francisco
- Remote status
- Hybrid
- Employment type
- Full-time

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