Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer — Sequoia-Backed AI Company
Location: Paris (4 days/week in office)
Compensation: €90K–€180K total (base + flexible bonus as cash or equity)
The Context
This is a Sequoia-backed AI company of ~90 people building what they call an "AI OS" — a platform where companies create custom AI agents that plug into their entire toolchain (Slack, Notion, GitHub, CRMs, internal data) and actually understand the full company context. They're not training models. They're building the product layer on top of LLMs — and the engineering challenges are genuinely complex: retrieval systems, agent orchestration, and data infrastructure at scale. The product is live, growing fast, and the team includes alumni from Stripe, Front, and OpenAI.
Why This Role Exists
The engineering team is ~25 today and scaling to 30–40 by end of year. They've been hiring at a pace of 3–5 engineers per quarter and need more senior firepower. The org is completely flat — no squads, no PMs, everyone reports to the CTO (ex-OpenAI). Every engineer has massive scope, and the team uses their own product daily for coding, debugging, incident management, and knowledge search. You build the thing you work with.
What You'll Be Doing
You’ll own critical features end-to-end — from scoping and design through to production. One week you might be building a core product experience that changes how users interact with AI agents. The next you could be deep in infrastructure, improving retrieval systems or scaling data pipelines. The team doesn't pigeonhole — they want engineers who spike in something (product engineering or infra/systems) and can operate across the full stack when needed. You’ll work directly with customers, ship fast, and iterate based on real feedback.
The Environment
Small, senior team. High trust, high ownership. If you see something broken, you fix it — no permission needed. They value velocity over perfection, strong convictions held loosely, and intellectual humility. The codebase is fully open source. It's a startup that moves fast but isn't chaotic — the people are sharp, collaborative, and low ego. Paris office is central and beautiful, with regular travel to the US.
Technical / Role Requirements
- Senior‑level engineering experience, ideally at startups or scale‑ups
- Strong full‑stack capability — comfortable moving between frontend and backend even if you lean one way
- A clear spike in either product engineering or infrastructure/systems — they want depth, not just breadth
- High agency and autonomy — self‑directed, proactive, doesn’t wait for tickets to appear
- Actively using AI in your engineering workflow with a point of view on how it’s changing the craft
- Experience shipping fast and making smart trade‑offs — perfectionism is a red flag here
- Low ego — collaborative, open to feedback, not precious about your code
- Comfortable in a flat org with no product squads and no PMs — you decide what matters and go build it
- Founding engineer or ex‑founder experience is highly valued
Advantageous
- Experience with TypeScript, React, Next.js, Rust, Kubernetes, or Terraform (but they’re tech agnostic — use whatever language you want, including in interviews)
- Background in retrieval systems, LLM infrastructure, vector databases, or search
Interview Process
- Initial screen (with us)
- Technical interview
- On‑site in Paris — meet the team, assessed across multiple dimensions
- Final conversation with the cofounder/CTO
Fast feedback throughout. Relocation candidates will be flown to Paris for the on‑site.
Benefits
- €90K–€180K total compensation (roughly 2/3 base + 1/3 flexible bonus — you choose the cash/equity split)
- Significant equity in a Sequoia‑backed startup
- Beautiful office in central Paris, 4 days/week (flexible adult environment)
- Relocation support up to €10K + visa and apartment assistance
- Health insurance for you and your dependents
- MacBook Pro or Linux setup of your choice
- Regular travel to the US
- Team events and offsites
Who This Would Suit
An engineer who’s done the big‑company thing (or never wanted to) and wants to be somewhere their work actually matters. Someone who ships fast, thinks in trade‑offs, and gets energy from ownership — not process. You’re already using AI daily and want to be at a company where you’re building the future of it, not just talking about it. You care about craft but you care about impact more.
If this sounds like you, drop me a message or apply below. Happy to share the company name and tell you more. The open source codebase is out there if you want to do your own homework first
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