# Founding Engineering Lead

**Company:** [AI Fund](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/ai-fund)
**Location:** New York, NY
**Role:** Engineering Management
**Salary:** $180k – $220k/yr
**Skills:** JavaScript, React Native, Node.js, Python, AI/ML, Voice Processing, Real-Time Systems, AWS, Postgres, Docker
**Posted:** 2026-01-23

> Lead engineering for an AI-powered voice app building social courage for Gen Z. Own web/mobile/backend stack, build voice AI primitives, co-design product, hire top talent, and architect for rapid iteration.

## Job Description

## What You'll Do

- **Own the technical foundation** of Meeno end-to-end: Web + mobile + backend + data + experimentation
- **Co-design product vision** in close partnership with Meeno’s team:
  - Renate Nyborg, founder/CEO (former Tinder CEO, ex Apple/Headspace)
  - Josh Knox, product lead (founder of Outright, brand and content expert)
  - Andrew Ng, Chairman (AI Fund, founder of Coursera/Google Brain)
- **Build core AI product primitives**:
  - Voice capture/playback
  - Low-latency interactions
  - Scene framework (content + branching + scoring hooks)
  - Feedback loops and user progression
  - Personalization
- **Architect for speed + iteration** (weekly experiments, not quarterly releases)
- **Set the engineering bar**:
  - Quality, reliability, security/privacy, and shipping culture
- **Hire and mentor engineers** as we scale:
  - Focus on quality over quantity, leveraging AI and talent to scale while staying lean

## What We're Looking For

- Strong builder who has shipped consumer products
- Comfortable with ambiguity and moving fast without breaking the soul of the product
- Product taste: you care about “feel,” not just functionality
- Excited by voice, interaction design, and behavior change
- Can operate like a founder: make tradeoffs, set direction, ship

## Green flags (not requirements)

- Hyped about social connection, empathy for Gen Z loneliness
- Early adopter of AI-driven development
- Hungry for rapid career progression and societal impact
- Experience with audio/voice pipelines, realtime systems, mobile performance
- History of building unconventional projects (creative tech, experiments, indie builds)
- Interest in human behavior, social dynamics, and product psychology

## What success looks like (first 6 months)

- Meeno has a stable foundation, and we can run rapid experiments
- Our product feels fast, human, and culturally sharp
- We have a pipeline of world-class engineering talent
- We are well-positioned to raise Series A with clear signal on north star metrics
- We are having fun

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**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/9a7c13a6-eaf7-46b0-83fa-54444c4ee6cc
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/9a7c13a6-eaf7-46b0-83fa-54444c4ee6cc