Founding Engineer / Technical Lead, AI Platform

Trade Titus is building an AI-driven platform for the contractor and home services industry, a massive market still running on outdated tech. Led by the founder of Contractor Gorilla, with 18+ years of industry experience, we’re looking for a Founding Engineer to join as a true technical partner. You will own the architecture from day one, turn deep industry insight into a tangible product, and eventually build the engineering team to scale it. If you want to build from the ground up in a market hungry for modernization, let's talk.

Position Summary

The Founding Engineer / Technical Lead will drive the hands-on development of Trade Titus from concept through beta testing and full production release. Working directly with the founder, you will translate deep industry workflows into a secure, reliable, and highly scalable platform.

This role demands a blend of full-stack engineering, AI agent development, and technical leadership. You will drive the technology stack selection in close partnership with the CEO, own the delivery roadmap, and build the core product. As the product gains traction, your role will expand to recruiting and leading the engineering team that takes us to the next level.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the technical architecture, partner with the CEO to select the technology stack, and translate industry workflows into an executable product roadmap.
• Drive the development lifecycle from concept through beta and production release, taking ownership of milestones, dependencies, and delivery momentum.
• Proactively identify technical risks, vendor constraints, or scope creep, and bring clear options to the table to keep development moving efficiently.
• Build and maintain scalable backend services, APIs, and responsive frontend interfaces.
• Develop AI agents, implement MCP and A2A capabilities, and integrate deeply with third-party systems.
• Establish automated testing, AI evaluations, deployment pipelines, and monitoring; troubleshoot and resolve production issues.
• Implement robust authentication, authorization, and data protection throughout the platform.
• Track AI, API, and infrastructure costs per customer and key workflow. Architect for economical growth by implementing cost monitoring and usage controls.
• Coordinate beta testing with the founder, rapidly incorporate user feedback, and demonstrate progress through working software.
• Document core technical decisions, establish foundational engineering standards, and eventually recruit, mentor, and lead a growing engineering team.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated ownership of complex production platforms (including SaaS architecture and product launches).
• 2+ years of hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications, including production AI agents and tool calling.
• Strong knowledge of Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent (A2A), with hands-on implementation experience in at least one and demonstrable practical capability in the other.
• Strong full-stack development skills, including backend services, API design, database modeling, and responsive web interfaces.
• Deep experience integrating third-party APIs using OAuth, webhooks, and background processing—specifically handling retries, duplicate prevention, and recovery from partial failures.
• Experience testing AI accuracy, tool execution, and failure handling in production environments.
• Experience operating production software, covering automated testing, CI/CD, monitoring, troubleshooting, and application security.
• A proven track record of shipping reliable production software at a high velocity.
• Prior experience as a technical lead for a shipped product, including guiding and mentoring other engineers.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical decisions, risks, and tradeoffs to the founder and early customers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience as an early engineering hire at a startup, helping establish the initial platform and engineering culture.
• Production implementation experience with both MCP and A2A.
• UI/UX design experience, with the ability to create functional, intuitive beta interfaces from raw product requirements.
• Experience recruiting engineers or formally managing an engineering team.

How to Apply

Please include:

• Your cover letter and resume.
• One relevant platform you helped take from concept through beta and production launch. Please include your personal contribution, the launch outcome, and a product link where available.
• A summary of your AI agent, MCP, and A2A experience, clearly distinguishing production implementations from prototypes.
• Your expected annual base salary.
• Your US location and earliest available start date.

Public code is welcome but not required. If your previous work is confidential, please describe your contribution and results without sharing proprietary information.