Founding Engineer

About Contrario

Contrario (YC W25) is building the modern, AI-powered recruiting marketplace, connecting elite startup recruiters with fast-growing companies through AI-powered matching and operational tools. We’ve raised $2.5M from Y Combinator and Nexus Venture Partners and angels from Hudson River Trading, Stanford, and OpenAI. Our customers include 50+ YC and venture-backed startups across engineering and GTM roles.

The Role

We're looking for our first in-person engineering hire: a founding engineer who will shape the technical foundation of Contrario. You'll be building AI-powered search and retrieval features while working across our full stack.

What You'll Do

• Build AI features from the ground up: Design and implement intelligent search, retrieval, and recommendation systems that power our core product
• Own the full stack: Ship features end-to-end in Next.js, TypeScript, and Supabase -- from database schemas to user interfaces
• Move fast: Launch features quickly, gather feedback, and iterate rapidly in a startup environment
• Shape the culture: As engineering employee #1, you'll help define our engineering practices, team culture, and hiring bar

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 0-3 years of full-stack software engineering experience
• Strong proficiency with TypeScript and modern web frameworks (Next.js)
• Solid understanding of AI/ML concepts -- but you should be comfortable working with LLMs, embeddings, vector databases, and retrieval systems
• Experience with databases and backend systems (Postgres/Supabase knowledge is valuable)
• Product-minded engineer who cares deeply about user experience
• Thrives in ambiguity and can operate independently

Our Stack

• Frontend: Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
• Backend: Next.js + TypeScript
• Database: Supabase (Postgres)
• Infrastructure: Vercel