Founding Engineer

We’re hiring a Founding Engineer to work directly with our Co-Founder & CTO and help build the core engineering system behind Cortex.

Cortex is building AI systems that make hardware development move dramatically faster. We acquire and operate engineering R&D firms, giving us access to live programs, decades of proprietary technical history, and real-world feedback from engineers, simulations, tests, and field outcomes.

This is a senior, hands-on role. You will own how the system is built and shipped, take technically ambiguous problems from first principles to production, and work directly with engineers inside real customer programs.

What you’ll do

• Design and build the core architecture for Cortex, including agent orchestration, retrieval, engineering-tool integrations, evaluations, observability, and security.
• Ship production AI systems into live engineering programs across domains such as power electronics, motion control, medical devices, and industrial equipment.
• Integrate with CAD, CAE, PLM, simulation, document, and internal data systems.
• Build reliable feedback loops from simulations, tests, engineer corrections, and field outcomes so the system improves over time.
• Work closely with experienced engineers to understand how work is actually done and identify where software can materially reduce cycle time.
• Turn prototypes into systems engineers can depend on every day.
• Help select, mentor, and set the technical bar for Cortex’s first engineering hires.
• Contribute to product direction while owning engineering execution end to end.

What we’re looking for
You have at least four years of experience shipping software, including production systems used by real customers. You are strong in Python and backend or ML systems engineering, have put AI systems into production, and understand where agents, retrieval, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, or conventional software are (and are not) the right tools.

You are comfortable working directly with customers and domain experts, operating in ambiguity, traveling to engineering sites, and taking responsibility for the quality of what ships.

This role is full-time and in person in New York City, with meaningful founding-team equity.