OpenBuilder Verified
Construction Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Software
Founding DevOps Engineer
San Francisco, California, United StatesOnsiteFull Time$170,000–$220,000 /yrPosted 2 months agoHidden Gem · YC Startup
Role summary
We are seeking a Founding DevOps Engineer for an early-stage YC startup building a web-based AI app builder for non-technical users. This staff-level role requires owning infrastructure, reliability, and operational excellence from day one. You will design secure VM access for human developers, build workflows for live debugging, and ensure deep observability. Responsibilities include production infrastructure ownership, CI/CD pipeline design, scaling VM workloads, leading incident response, and setting security standards. Experience with DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering, Linux, networking, PostgreSQL, GCP, security architecture, and observability is required. Cloudflare, Django, and AI workload experience are preferred.
### The Company
We’re building a **web-based AI app builder** that lets **non-technical users** create and deploy real applications without writing code. Our users expect things to “just work”—which means the platform underneath must be fast, reliable, and invisible.
We’re an early-stage, YC startup building a small, high-ownership founding team.
### The Role
We’re hiring a **Founding DevOps Engineer** to own infrastructure, reliability, and operational excellence from day one. This is a **staff-level role** with architectural authority and long-term impact.
You’ll design systems that support AI-powered workloads, rapid iteration, and a product where non-technical users never think about infrastructure—yet can get instant help when something goes wrong.
### Human-in-the-Loop Infrastructure (What Makes This Role Unique)
A core differentiator of our product is a **human-in-the-loop marketplace**.
When a user’s app breaks or behaves unexpectedly, a vetted human developer can **instantly jump into that user’s running VM**, diagnose the issue, and fix it in real time—often before the user even understands what went wrong.
As a founding DevOps engineer, you will:
* Design **secure, auditable VM access** for third-party human developers
* Build fast, safe workflows for live debugging and remediation
* Integrate deep observability so humans can act with full context
* Ensure isolation, permissions, and trust boundaries are rock-solid
This system is powered by strong observability and tooling, including **Sentry-style error tracking**, logging, metrics, and traces that tie user-visible issues directly to infrastructure and code.
### What You’ll Do
* Own production infrastructure, deployments, and reliability
* Architect scalable systems for a high-growth AI web platform
* Design CI/CD pipelines that optimize for safety and speed
* Operate and scale VM-based workloads
* Build observability that reflects real user impact (errors, latency, failures)
* Lead incident response, postmortems, and long-term reliability improvements
* Set standards for security, backups, disaster recovery, and performance
* Work closely with product engineers to reduce operational complexity
* Help define engineering culture and best practices as the team grows
### Tech Stack
* **TypeScript, React**
* **Django**
* **PostgreSQL**
* [**Fly.io**](http://Fly.io)\*\* (VM-based deployments)\*\*
* **Google Cloud Platform**
* **Cloudflare**
* **Nginx**
* **VSCode Web**
* **Observability:** Sentry-style error tracking, logs, metrics, tracing
### What We’re Looking For
* 3+ years of experience in DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering
* Proven ownership of production systems at scale
* Strong Linux, networking, and web infrastructure fundamentals
* Experience running PostgreSQL in production
* Cloud experience (GCP preferred)
* Comfort designing secure systems with live access and trust boundaries
* Product-oriented mindset for non-technical users
* Ability to make architectural decisions in ambiguous, early-stage environments
* Clear communicator who can explain complex systems simply
### Nice to Have
* Founding or early-stage startup experience
* Backend engineering background (especially Django)
* Experience with Cloudflare, edge platforms, or AI workloads
* Experience designing internal tooling or support platforms
### Why Join
* **Founding engineer role** with deep ownership and influence
* Build a genuinely differentiated AI product
* Solve hard infrastructure problems with real user impact
* Close collaboration with founders
* Competitive salary + meaningful equity
* Shape the technical foundation from day one
We’re building a **web-based AI app builder** that lets **non-technical users** create and deploy real applications without writing code. Our users expect things to “just work”—which means the platform underneath must be fast, reliable, and invisible.
We’re an early-stage, YC startup building a small, high-ownership founding team.
### The Role
We’re hiring a **Founding DevOps Engineer** to own infrastructure, reliability, and operational excellence from day one. This is a **staff-level role** with architectural authority and long-term impact.
You’ll design systems that support AI-powered workloads, rapid iteration, and a product where non-technical users never think about infrastructure—yet can get instant help when something goes wrong.
### Human-in-the-Loop Infrastructure (What Makes This Role Unique)
A core differentiator of our product is a **human-in-the-loop marketplace**.
When a user’s app breaks or behaves unexpectedly, a vetted human developer can **instantly jump into that user’s running VM**, diagnose the issue, and fix it in real time—often before the user even understands what went wrong.
As a founding DevOps engineer, you will:
* Design **secure, auditable VM access** for third-party human developers
* Build fast, safe workflows for live debugging and remediation
* Integrate deep observability so humans can act with full context
* Ensure isolation, permissions, and trust boundaries are rock-solid
This system is powered by strong observability and tooling, including **Sentry-style error tracking**, logging, metrics, and traces that tie user-visible issues directly to infrastructure and code.
### What You’ll Do
* Own production infrastructure, deployments, and reliability
* Architect scalable systems for a high-growth AI web platform
* Design CI/CD pipelines that optimize for safety and speed
* Operate and scale VM-based workloads
* Build observability that reflects real user impact (errors, latency, failures)
* Lead incident response, postmortems, and long-term reliability improvements
* Set standards for security, backups, disaster recovery, and performance
* Work closely with product engineers to reduce operational complexity
* Help define engineering culture and best practices as the team grows
### Tech Stack
* **TypeScript, React**
* **Django**
* **PostgreSQL**
* [**Fly.io**](http://Fly.io)\*\* (VM-based deployments)\*\*
* **Google Cloud Platform**
* **Cloudflare**
* **Nginx**
* **VSCode Web**
* **Observability:** Sentry-style error tracking, logs, metrics, tracing
### What We’re Looking For
* 3+ years of experience in DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering
* Proven ownership of production systems at scale
* Strong Linux, networking, and web infrastructure fundamentals
* Experience running PostgreSQL in production
* Cloud experience (GCP preferred)
* Comfort designing secure systems with live access and trust boundaries
* Product-oriented mindset for non-technical users
* Ability to make architectural decisions in ambiguous, early-stage environments
* Clear communicator who can explain complex systems simply
### Nice to Have
* Founding or early-stage startup experience
* Backend engineering background (especially Django)
* Experience with Cloudflare, edge platforms, or AI workloads
* Experience designing internal tooling or support platforms
### Why Join
* **Founding engineer role** with deep ownership and influence
* Build a genuinely differentiated AI product
* Solve hard infrastructure problems with real user impact
* Close collaboration with founders
* Competitive salary + meaningful equity
* Shape the technical foundation from day one
