Job Description

🚀‬‭ Overview‬

‭Join us as the Senior Founding Engineer at Proximo, an AI-native company at the intersection of EdTech and‬ HRTech. We're reimagining career navigation in an era where artificial intelligence is transforming work itself.‬ Unlike platforms focused on isolated job changes, we combine elite coaching methodologies with AI to provide‬ continuous, personalized guidance that evolves throughout a person's career. We've already seen success‬ ‭helping individuals with non-traditional backgrounds, like military veterans, translate their unique experiences into‬ industries such as technology and finance. Working directly with our founders, you'll harness emerging‬ technologies to help people discover their full potential in an evolving professional landscape.‬

As a company innovating career management, we’ve‬‭ made this job description intentionally comprehensive – not as a gimmick, but as a reflection of our‬ commitment to open communication and informed decision-making. We want you to have the context‬ needed to evaluate whether this role and opportunity align with your career goals. While this job description‬ provides a strong foundation, we'll discuss specific details about our product, strategy, and vision during‬ the interview process.‬

💫Why This Role Matters‬

‭As our Senior Founding Engineer, you'll be the technical cornerstone of a venture that aims to fundamentally‬ transform how people navigate their careers. Your work will have direct impact on:‬

• Individual livelihoods and career trajectories‬
• The future of career development technology‬
• Our company's technical foundation and culture‬
• The evolution of AI-native development and product delivery practices‬

Thus, this role requires someone who can balance technical expertise with strategic thinking, while maintaining a‬ focus on creating meaningful impact - and safety - for our users. The responsibilities this role will have are:‬

‭ 1. Technical Architecture & Development‬

• Design and implement core platform infrastructure‬
• Establish security protocols and compliance standards‬
• Build scalable systems that maintain personalization‬
• Appropriately leveraging automation to include latest AI capabilities for development and operations,‬ allowing developers and other teammates to focus on high-value decisions and actions‬

‭ 2. Technical Leadership & Strategy‬

• Keep abreast of latest technology news, assessing and promoting appropriate capabilities to the team‬
• Contribute to product strategy and development methodology‬
• ‬‭ Provide technical insight for key business decisions‬
• Establish our engineering culture from the ground up‬
• Mentor future engineering team members‬

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🌱‬‭ Startup Ecosystem Opportunity‬

‭Beyond the core role responsibilities, joining Proximo offers unique exposure to the startup ecosystem:‬

• Incubator Connections:‬‭ We're actively engaged with‬‭ programs like Pear Studio and Berkeley SkyDeck‬ Pad13, providing valuable networking and learning opportunities‬
• Learning Environment:‬‭ Gain firsthand experience with‬‭ the fundraising process and early-stage company‬ building alongside a community of founders‬
• Ecosystem Access:‬‭ Connect with mentors, advisors,‬‭ and fellow technologists in the AI, EdTech, and‬ HRTech spaces‬
• Technical Impact:‬‭ Your engineering leadership will‬‭ be instrumental as we continue developing‬ relationships with investors and accelerator programs‬. This position offers both professional growth and the chance to help build a company from its foundations with‬ support from established startup ecosystems.‬

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‭👥‬‭ About the Co-Founders‬

‭We're experienced professionals who happen to be first-time founders, not novices to the industry or tech. With‬ decades of relevant experience and deep industry connections to this venture, we understand both the opportunity and responsibility of building a company from scratch, and we're looking for teammates who‬ appreciate working with seasoned professionals while being comfortable with the inherent uncertainties of a‬ ‭startup environment.‬ We encourage candidates to:‬

• Review our LinkedIn profiles and professional history‬
• Connect with our former colleagues and mutual connections‬
• Perform backdoor reference checks‬
• Ask tough questions about our experience and leadership philosophy‬
• Challenge our assumptions and plans‬

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🛠 Technical Requirements‬

‭We're looking for someone who has built and scaled systems in production environments. We find this experience‬ correlates to developers with 7+ years in industry, though that tenure is not a hard requirement.‬

‭ Core Technical Expertise‬

• Frontend Architecture: Experience building sophisticated, maintainable user interfaces at scale that‬ adhere to accessibility (e.g. WCAG) standards‬
• Backend Systems: Track record designing reliable distributed systems and data architectures‬
• Cloud Infrastructure: Deep knowledge of cloud platforms and modern deployment patterns‬
• Security Implementation: Experience with SOC2 compliance and handling sensitive user data‬

‭ AI/ML Leadership‬

• LLM Integration: Practical experience integrating and fine-tuning language models‬
• RAG Systems: Understanding of retrieval-augmented generation architectures‬
• ML Infrastructure: Experience with model deployment, monitoring, and optimization‬

‭ AI-Native Development Vision‬

• Development Automation: Strategic vision for leveraging AI coding assistants and workflow automation‬
• Tool Integration: Track record of evaluating and adopting emerging development tools‬
• Engineering Judgment: Ability to determine where human expertise remains critical‬

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‭ It would be nice if you had…‬

• Early-stage startup experience‬
• EdTech/HRtech/Future-of-work familiarity‬
• AI-native development vision‬
• Team automation experience‬

‭ As we search for product-market fit, you should value…‬

• Rapid iteration with reasonable quality‬
• Leveraging automation to allow humans to focus on high-value decisions and actions‬
• Secure development practices‬

‭ Once we have PMF, you should value…‬

• ‬‭ Balancing “perfect” solutions with practical implementation‬
• Deep system architecture thinking‬
• Maintainable, well-documented code‬

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💰‬‭ Compensation & Location/Work Model‬

‭As a pre-seed stage startup, we've structured our compensation to reflect both our current stage and our‬ commitment to our early team members:‬

• Base Salary: $125,000 annually‬
• For comparison, co-founders are not taking any salary until next raise‬
• Base salary will increase based on performance with future funding rounds, targeting‬ market-aligned rates‬
• Equity: Meaningful pre-seed equity with 4-year vesting‬
• 1-year cliff, monthly thereafter‬
• Higher than standard market rates‬
• Current cap table and detailed equity structure will be shared during interviews‬
• Additional equity potential if growing into CTO role‬
• SF Bay Area based hybrid model with 2-3 days per week in-office at Menlo Park or San Francisco‬

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