Founding Engineer

New York, NY
Full-time
Visa Sponsorship

About the role

This is a full-time, on-site role in New York City for someone who can build product and drive outcomes with customers.

This is not a role for someone who wants clean abstractions, perfect APIs, or slow roadmaps. You will ship production fixes, deploy automations, talk to operators, and help close deals — often in the same week.

What you’ll do:

  • Own integrations with lenders, vendors, and state-specific processes (often inconsistent and hostile to automation)
  • Debug and harden systems that deal with messy inputs: OCR outputs, missing data, DMV rejection loops, inconsistent county requirements
  • Work directly with customers: gather requirements, explain workflows, manage pilots, and turn adoption into expansion
  • Support live operations when needed
  • Help design the product by being close to the pain: rejections, backlog, chase cycles, etc.

You will be expected to:

  • Write code that directly impacts revenue and customer retention
  • Communicate confidently with collateral teams, ops teams, and decision-makers
  • Be a “founder energy” operator: see problems, fix problems, close problems

You are a strong fit if you have:

  • Strong computer science fundamentals and engineering judgment
  • Real backend experience (TypeScript / Node preferred; AWS + cloud workflows a plus)
  • High ownership
  • Ability to communicate clearly with customers and translate pain into product
  • Entrepreneurial temperament: you like chaotic problems and moving fast

Bonus (but not required):

  • Experience in fintech, lending, B2B SaaS, or compliance-heavy workflows
  • Sales instinct: you can tell what a customer actually needs vs. what they’re asking for
  • Experience working with large enterprise clients (pilots, rollouts, expansions)

About Cardinal Gray

Automating lenders' interactions with the DMV

Required skills

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
HTML
JavaScript
React
TypeScript
Software Architecture
Prompt Engineering

Interested?

Let me introduce you to the founders.

Skip the process

Job details

Salary

$120,000 - $160,000

Equity

0.5% - 2%

Location

New York, NY

Experience

1+ years

Company

NameCardinal Gray
IndustryCredit and Lending
Team Size6

Funding

Total raised

$500K

Last stage

Seed

Investors

Y Combinator

Founders

Jack Chapman

Jack Chapman

LinkedIn
Grant Pease

Grant Pease

LinkedIn
Muhammad Khattak

Muhammad Khattak

LinkedIn

What happens next.

No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.

01

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

02

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

03

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.