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Founding Software Engineer Location: New York City, 5 days in office Salary: $150k-$250k - Grads welcome if you have strong internships Our client is a YC W26 company building the AI sales and growth engine for home services, starting with HVAC. It was founded by three Harvard Business School dropouts who embedded so deeply in the industry they rode along with dozens of technicians and are studying for the EPA 608 exam to become certified techs themselves. Traction so far includes nine named customer logos, paying customers each uncovering six figures in new revenue weekly, and $40k in new business closed within the first hour of launch. US home services, covering HVAC, plumbing and pool, is a $600B+ fragmented market made up of hundreds of thousands of SMB operators still running on outdated software their technicians struggle to use. The product turns each technician visit into structured data and revenue, helping techs recommend the right equipment, present clean options to homeowners, get clear talking points in the field, and capture insights with simple voice AI that rolls up into a single view for GMs. It is already live with HVAC operators across the US and expanding into other home services verticals. This is a small, fast-moving founding team that spends real time in the field with technicians rather than building from a distance. They want someone who can move between a truck cab and a whiteboard in the same day and be comfortable in both. The Role This is a customer-facing product engineering role with a part-time FDE hat. Because HVAC operators are not technical and the software they have used until now has failed them, a large part of the job is going directly to customers to train, teach and onboard them, then turning messy, unstructured field feedback into product. The founders have been explicit that this is more a customer-facing product engineer than an FDE who happens to code, so whoever they hire needs to be just as comfortable talking to technicians and business owners as they are shipping architecture. Expect to spend some days riding in a truck with a plumber or HVAC tech watching how the product is actually used, then head back to the NYC office to build. The deployments are not complex and the users are not technical, so the job is less about deploying complicated systems and more about empathy, product sense, and translating what you see in the field into good technical decisions. The founders worry least about raw coding ability given how much agents can now handle. The real bar is whether you can design good architecture and win over a blue collar technician in conversation. What You'll Own Building the product end to end as a founding engineer, covering architecture that scales and features that ship Going to customers to train, teach and onboard non-technical HVAC and home services users, the part-time FDE side of the role Turning unstructured field feedback into real product work Riding along with technicians to see the product in the wild and inform what gets built next Chipping in on in-person outbound at conferences, meeting people and building rapport What We're Looking For A strong engineer who can design good technical architectures, which is the real technical bar here Genuine product sense, able to translate messy customer feedback into what to build Ideally has been both an FDE and an engineer, or at minimum has solid engineering experience Comfortable talking directly to customers and users on calls or on-site, this is non-negotiable Extroverted, able to carry a conversation with a blue collar worker, banter and build rapport Could sell the company and the product, the founders' own test being "could this person pitch us" Works hard and cares about output over hours, this is not a nine to five - Startup experience, ideally early stage or zero to one Fewer than around five years out of college, though not a strict cutoff Personality and a life outside engineering matter here If you are open to learning more please apply below and I will be in contact to discuss the position further, please also note sponsorship is not available
Here's how to pick the right one and stand out in your application.
144.883Jobs
31.687IN
81%EN
That number is real. WorkMundi's database shows 144,883 open engineer roles across the world. India has the most with 31,687 jobs, followed by the United States with 30,084. If you just finished reading one job ad and felt paralyzed by choice, you're not alone—but this scale is actually an advantage. It means you can afford to be selective.
Start by geography and language. The majority of engineer ads—117,837 of them—have the job posting text written in English. Use that as one filter, but remember: the ad text language tells you nothing about whether the role actually requires you to speak English day-to-day. Read the job description carefully. Then check which countries have the volume you're targeting. Singapore, Poland, and Australia round out the top five after India and the US.
Next, learn who's hiring. Accenture has posted 2,801 engineer roles. andurilindustries, speechify, and jobgether are also actively recruiting. If you're applying to one of these names, research their hiring patterns and interview style before you apply. That homework pays off.
When you interview, expect the question every engineer hears: 'Tell me about a time you had to debug a problem that wasn't in your job description.' Have a specific story ready—not a general one. Name the tools, the deadline pressure, and what you learned. Hiring managers listen for whether you see problem-solving as part of the role itself, not a favour.