I wrote about what non-technical founders should look for when hiring their first AI engineer. The response was clear: “Great — now give me something I can actually post.”

Here it is. A job description template built around what actually matters at early stage: iteration speed, ownership, and AI-native development.

Copy it. Adapt it. Use it.

Job Title: Startup AI Engineer

Location: [Your City] or Remote (Same Timezone Required)

Commitment: Full-time, 60+ hours/week expected

Compensation: [Salary Range] + [Equity Range]

About the Role

We’re looking for a full-stack engineer who ships fast — not someone who writes beautiful code slowly.

You’ll be our first (or early) engineering hire. That means you won’t just write code. You’ll talk to users, design solutions, build features, deploy them, and iterate — all in the same day. Sometimes the same hour.

We don’t have PRDs. We don’t have product designers. We don’t have code review committees. We have a problem to solve and customers waiting for a solution.

If that sounds chaotic, it is. If that sounds exciting, keep reading.

What You’ll Do

  • Ship daily. Not weekly. Not “when it’s ready.” Daily.
  • Own the full loop. Talk to users → understand the problem → design → build → deploy → iterate.
  • Build with AI. You’ll use LLMs as your primary development tool. If you’re still manually typing every line of code, you’ll be too slow.
  • Move without permission. We’ll give you context and goals. You figure out the rest.
  • Break things and fix them fast. We’d rather ship something imperfect today than something perfect next month.

What We’re Looking For

REQUIRED

  • Speed over perfection. Show us things you’ve shipped fast. Side projects, weekend builds, startup experience — we care about velocity, not polish.
  • AI-native workflow. You should already be building with Cursor, Copilot, Claude, or similar tools. This isn’t optional.
  • Full-stack capability. You can build frontend, backend, and deploy it yourself. No handoffs.
  • Same timezone. 100% working hour overlap with the team. Real-time communication is non-negotiable.
  • 60+ hour commitment. Early stage is a sprint. If you’re optimizing for work-life balance right now, we’re not the right fit.

NICE TO HAVE

  • Experience at an early-stage startup (Seed to Series A)
  • Shipped a product from zero to users
  • Comfortable with ambiguity and changing requirements
  • Strong written communication skills

Our Stack

  • Language: TypeScript
  • Frontend: React, Next.js, Tailwind CSS
  • Backend: Node.js
  • Database: Postgres
  • Infrastructure: Vercel, Railway, AWS, Cloudflare, Docker
  • Monorepo: Turborepo, pnpm
  • AI Tools: Claude Code

You don’t need to know all of these. But you should be comfortable picking up new tools fast — because that’s the job.

What We’re NOT Looking For

  • Engineers who need detailed specs before writing code
  • People who optimize for “clean architecture” over shipping
  • Anyone who says “that’s not my job”
  • Slow movers who need multiple review cycles to ship anything

How We’ll Evaluate You

Forget the algorithm whiteboard. We’ll ask you to build something live.

We’ll give you a small problem and 30-60 minutes. You’ll share your screen, use whatever AI tools you want, and ship something working. We want to see how you think, how you iterate, and how fast you move.

If you can’t demo it, you can’t do it.

Why Join Us

  • Ownership. You’ll have more impact in 6 months here than in 3 years at a big company.
  • Speed. We ship fast because we can. No bureaucracy, no politics, no waiting.
  • Equity. Real stake in what we’re building.
  • Learning. You’ll touch every part of the stack and the business.

How to Apply

Send us:

  1. A link to something you’ve shipped (side project, product, anything real)
  2. A short note on why this role excites you
  3. Your resume (optional — we care more about #1)

No cover letter novels. No “I’m a passionate team player” fluff. Just show us what you’ve built.

This job description is based on Worca’s framework for hiring AI engineers. Read the full article for the philosophy behind these requirements.

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