What are the responsibilities and job description for the Founding Senior Software Engineer position at Protege AI?
Company Description Protege AI builds agent orchestration infrastructure that helps operations teams automate complex workflows at scale. Its platform, Hookshot, converts operational triggers into resolved workflows by routing work, enforcing review logic, and escalating exceptions automatically, allowing teams to focus on judgment-intensive tasks. Protege AI serves some of the world’s most demanding companies, supporting millions of operational workflows annually where high volume and high stakes make manual processes unsustainable. The company is a small, focused, cash-flow-positive team committed to long-term impact. Protege AI is dedicated to solving the challenges faced by PMO and operations organizations whose growth outpaces headcount.
In-Office Cadence minimum twice per week!
About the Role
We're seeking an experienced Founding Staff Engineer to drive our full-stack and ML development efforts and champion innovative, scalable solutions. This is a hands-on leadership role for an individual with a strong background in Bun (TypeScript), React.js, and machine learning, who can bridge backend development, ML systems, and exceptional front-end UX implementation. In addition to coding expertise, you'll lead design discussions, mentor a high-performing team, and shape our technical strategy as we scale our enterprise-grade products to support triple-digit growth.
Key Responsibilities
💡 Technical Leadership & Strategy: Guide our technical vision with systems design, architecture reviews, and strategic planning while mentoring and leading a team of talented, ambitious builders.
• 💻 Full Stack Development: Architect, develop, and maintain server-side features using Node.js (TypeScript) and deliver scalable, user-friendly interfaces in React.js.
• 🔧 Operational Excellence: Oversee on-call rotations, troubleshoot issues promptly, and implement robust debugging strategies to ensure continuous service.
• 🎨 Product & Design Collaboration: Translate product requirements into scalable technical designs, collaborating closely with product managers, designers, and stakeholders.
• 🚀 Innovation & Emerging Technologies: Explore industry trends such as LLM fine tuning, OpenAI prompt engineering, and serverless deployments on platforms like Railway or Vercel to drive our competitive edge.
Nice-to-Have Skills
• Experience in creating and optimizing OpenAI prompts for AI-powered applications.
• Proven track record of fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) for industry-specific applications.
• Prior experience with VC-backed startups or contributing to zero-to-one projects in large tech companies.
Qualifications
- 5 years of professional software development experience, including leadership or tech lead roles
- Deep expertise in full stack development with strong proficiency in Bun (TypeScript) and React.js
- Expertise in developing RAG pipelines for citations and similar use cases
- Experience integrating ML solutions into production environments (Northflank, Postgres, AI SDK, or similar)
- A solid understanding of UX/UI principles with a keen eye for design and user experience
- Excellent communication and teamwork skills, with a passion for mentoring and leading technical teams
- Entrepreneurial mindset with an interest in startups and innovation (bonus points for aspiring founders)