Founding Engineer

Founding Engineer – North Sydney (Onsite, 5 days/week)

Talent International is partnering with a leading, hyper-growth AI company to hire their next Founding Engineer.

Role Snapshot

Role Title: Founding Engineer

Contract Length: Permanent (salary open depending on experience)

Location + WFH Flexibility: North Sydney, 5 days onsite

Salary: Open & highly competitive (includes top-of-market equity)

Project: Building and scaling next-generation AI consumer products

Client Industry: AI / Consumer Tech

Start Date: ASAP

Interview Process:

* Coffee chat

* 1-hour system design interview

* Short paid work trial

* Offer (top of market + equity)

About the Opportunity

We’re working with one of Australia’s most exciting AI product companies – one of the fastest-growing consumer AI apps globally, hitting 10M+ users in under a year with a team of only 12. They’re profitable, bootstrapped, and scaling at Silicon Valley speed.

This is a rare chance to join as one of the first five engineers, working directly with repeat founders and an elite engineering team in North Sydney.

What You’ll Be Doing

You’ll build across the full stack, own problems end-to-end, and ship at extreme speed. Expect to work directly with the CTO on bleeding-edge AI challenges.

Examples of what you might ship

• Real-time AI video calling with <200ms latency
• GPU orchestration for millions of image generations per day
• Testing/optimising in-house models and LoRAs for 10-100M users
• Full feature ownership: user understanding → idea → build → ship → iterate

Tech Stack: TypeScript, Next.js, React, TailwindCSS, tRPC, Postgres, Temporal

Who They’re Looking For

They hire only exceptional engineers.

• Extremely smart, rapid learner
• Full-stack builder who ships fast
• High agency and low ego
• Works well in an intense, fast-paced, talent-dense environment
• Someone who builds outside of work (side projects, OSS, niche tools, competitions)
• Comfortable working onsite 5+ days per week
• Comfortable that some customer segments operate in the adult industry

Why This Role Is Exceptional

Opportunity

• Top 50 global AI consumer app in <12 months
• Possibly the fastest-growing bootstrapped startup in Australia
• Profitable with strong revenue-no VC pressure
• Salary above market + meaningful equity

Technology

• Real AI infrastructure (not API wrappers)
• Running their own GPUs, custom training, and rapid scaling
• Millions of images/messages generated daily
• Exposure to cutting-edge tools like Temporal and Planetscale

Team

• Repeat founders with previous multimillion-dollar exit
• Ex-VC, ex-CTO, founders newly returned from SF
• Team of 12 doing the work of what’s usually 30-50 engineers
• No silos – complete ownership and autonomy
• Intense, hardworking culture of people who love to build

Mission

They’re building a new category of adaptive, interactive entertainment– AI experiences that evolve as you engage.

Think beyond TikTok/YouTube: this is entertainment that responds in real time.

If this sounds like you, apply now.

This is a career-defining opportunity to build at the frontier of AI with one of the most exciting engineering teams in Australia.