Job description
LowRateCo - Founding Lead Engineer
We are seeking a highly motivated and hands-on Founding Lead Engineer to build and own the core technology platform of a venture-backed, early-stage company disrupting the multi-trillion-dollar mortgage industry. This is a rare opportunity to move an entire industry by architecting an end-to-end AI automation solution.
You will be the first in-house engineering hire, responsible for migrating our product from an external agency to an internal, scalable platform, and then rapidly building out the next generation of our AI-driven features.
Role Responsibilities:
Hands-on Engineering and Architecture: Act as the primary engineer, leading the design, development, testing, and deployment of our mission-critical, cloud-native platform.
AI Agent Development & Integration: Integrate, scale, and manage proprietary and third-party AI agents (LLMs like Gemini/GPT) to automate core business functions, including sales, processing, and underwriting.
System Ownership & Migration: Take ownership of the existing infrastructure (GCP, Python/FireStore, Salesforce integration) and strategically plan and execute the migration from the current external vendor to a robust, in-house system.
Technical Roadmapping & Decisioning: Drive all major technical decisions, setting the standards for code quality, architectural integrity, and security from the ground up.
Team Building: Play a critical role in defining the future engineering team structure and participate in the recruitment, mentoring, and scaling of the future engineering staff.
Product Collaboration: Work closely with the CEO and product stakeholders to translate an ambitious product vision—specifically the transition to full AI processing and underwriting—into technical specifications and delivered features.
What You Bring
Experience: 4+ years of professional experience in full-stack software development, with a strong emphasis on backend and cloud architecture.
Startup DNA: Proven experience working in a high-growth, early-stage startup environment or as a Founding Engineer, demonstrating the ability to thrive with high autonomy and limited resources.
Technical Foundation: Deep experience with modern cloud environments, preferably GCP, and expertise in backend languages like Python (relevant for AI/ML work) or similar distributed systems languages.
System Design: Strong background in designing and deploying cloud-native, distributed systems capable of handling high transaction volumes and integrating multiple external APIs.
Product Mindset: Ability to quickly understand complex business needs and apply a product-first approach to engineering solutions, focusing on speed and value delivery.
Founding Engineer Traits:
Exceptional self-starter and problem-solver.
Comfortable with ambiguity and rapid iteration.
A strong bias for action and delivery.
What We Offer
Significant Equity: Generous founder-level equity compensation for taking on a foundational role.
Massive Impact: The chance to change a 100-year-old industry and work on complex, high-impact AI challenges.
High Visibility: Direct collaboration with the CEO, VCs, and key partners like Rocket Mortgage.
Competitive Salary: A competitive base salary, targeting the $150k - $180k range, commensurate with experience and potential.
