Wildcard — Founding Engineer

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $160,000–$200,000 + competitive founding equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None available Reports to: Kaushik (Founder & CEO)

Wildcard is the AI SEO platform that helps retail and e-commerce brands win at ChatGPT Shopping. As AI replaces traditional search, it gives brands the tools to track how their products appear across AI engines, optimize product data and on-site content for AI recommendations, and enable instant checkout directly inside ChatGPT through OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol. Founded by Kaushik, a former engineering manager at Scale AI, where he built product data pipelines for Walmart, Coupang, Shopify, and large marketplaces.

Founded: 2025 | Team size: 1–10 (Seed) | Backing: Y Combinator Traction: 6 live brand customers, 12 new brand meetings booked per week; 2.5 years of runway even after these hires Industry: AI Tools Website: wild-card.ai Office: San Francisco, CA

• Engineer #1: Genuine founding seat — not joining a team, building one. Shapes architecture, culture, and what gets built from day one.
• Market at an inflection point: AI commerce is moving fast and nobody, not even the model labs, has fully figured it out — that ambiguity is the opportunity.
• Real ownership + runway: High-agency role with 2.5 years of runway behind it, direct daily work with the founder, and founding equity.

• Top three filters (priority order, confirmed directly on the intake call): (1) last role at a Series A / Series B or a known fast-moving company, with clear evidence of operating at startup speed; (2) Top-50 school background preferred — a meaningful signal, not a hard requirement; (3) has worked on AI agents / agent-based systems in any capacity (e-commerce background is a bonus, not required).
• Strong full-stack experience in TypeScript, Node.js, Express, React, and Next.js — ships across the stack independently without needing others on either side.
• High agency and high schlep tolerance: resilient through changing priorities and mini-pivots, brings new ideas constantly, self-prioritizes without being managed, excited by ownership and wearing multiple hats.

Founding Engineer — engineer number one, helping shape both the product and the company from an early stage. A high-ownership role: you help decide what gets built, how, and what gets prioritized as the market evolves.

• →Build incrementality and attribution systems tied to revenue outcomes for e-commerce brands
• →Scale browser orchestration and retrieval infrastructure across AI commerce surfaces
• →Make core workflows reliable with better queues, retries, and observability
• →Adapt the product to emerging agentic commerce protocols and new platform launches
• →Build AI agents, MCP servers, and new product surfaces across emerging verticals
• →Own the full stack frontend to backend, shipping wherever the highest-leverage problem lives
• →Work in tight feedback loops with customers to translate product needs into shipped features
• →Shape the engineering culture and architecture of the company from day one

Tech stack: TypeScript, Node.js, Express, React, Next.js; Postgres, Redis, queues / async jobs; browser automation & retrieval infrastructure; LLM APIs, AI agents, MCP servers

• 3 to 7 years software engineering at a high-signal company
• TypeScript and Node.js proficiency
• AI agent and LLM API experience in production
• Full-stack product development capability
• Founding engineer mindset, high agency and high ownership
• In-person San Francisco

• Background at Profound, Browserbase, Ramp, Hyperbound, Triple Whale, Pallet, Wrodium, or Scrunch, or any high-signal YC Series A to B company
• Has worked at Scale AI, a top YC company, or a fast-moving early-stage startup where they had real ownership and shipped meaningful product
• Has built AI agents or LLM-powered workflows in production, not just experimented locally
• Has the profile of someone who would be or has been a founder, takes ownership of outcomes not just tasks
• Top school or exceptional engineering pedigree that signals deep technical ability even with fewer years of experience
• Active user of AI-native development tools, moves faster because of the tools, not dependent on them

• Big tech background only with no evidence of operating at startup speed or owning a full product end-to-end
• Job hopper, multiple short stints without clear progression or shipped product
• Has been unemployed for six or more months without a clear reason
• Wants a defined scope and structured environment, this role requires someone who creates structure, not someone who needs it
• No real AI agent or LLM experience, the product is deeply AI-driven and this is a hard requirement

• Postgres, Redis, queues, and async job systems
• Browser automation, scraping, or retrieval infrastructure
• Building reliable production systems with retries, observability, and workflow orchestration
• Building AI agents, including context management, orchestration, and evals
• MCP servers, internal developer tools, or workflow products
• E-commerce, retail infrastructure, search, attribution, or analytics systems
• Building codebases and products that work well with agents

Salary$160,000–$200,000EquityCompetitive (founding)On-site policyIn-person, San FranciscoVisa sponsorshipNone availableEmployment typeFull-timeLocationSan Francisco, CA

Benefits & perks: Unlimited PTO, 401(k), daily lunch, company laptop, health insurance, Bay Club gym membership

None provided on the Contrario role page. Add any you want asked on the CEO call.

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Quick Call with CEO — Intro call with the founder. Stage 3 — Take-home Assignment — Technical take-home. Stage 4 — One-to-two-day Work Trial — Short paid working trial. Stage 5 — Offer Extended Stage 6 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.

From the Green Flags card / Ideal Companies section (all 8 shown — none truncated). Target backgrounds — Profound, Scrunch, Wrodium, Hyperbound, Triple Whale, Pallet, Browserbase, Ramp; plus Scale AI, any top YC company, or a high-signal YC Series A–B startup.