Founding Engineer - AI Agent Infrastructure (San Francisco) Job at Brief (a16z sr005), San Francisco, CA

TjdDalRSVXBTNG1tZmFhTVRUbE1JTkpEb0E9PQ==
  • Brief (a16z sr005)
  • San Francisco, CA

Job Description

Brief is a product management agent swarm that gives AI coding tools product judgment.

We're a 2-person founding team using Cursor/Claude to ship at 10x velocity. Here's what we're building:

AI coding assistants made you 10x faster at writing code. But they can't answer product questions:

  • Should we build this feature? (they don't know your strategy)
  • Why did we reject real-time collaboration? (they have no memory)
  • What do our users actually need? (they can't read research calls)
  • Is this the right priority? (they don't understand your velocity or constraints)

We're building the missing product intelligence layer.

Instead of just making developers faster, we're enabling a new way of work that blends product, design, and engineering. When you ask Claude a question in your IDE, Brief's agent swarm runs in the background:

  • StrategyAgent extracts your vision and goals from roadmaps and docs
  • ResearchAgent synthesizes user needs from customer calls
  • VelocityAgent calculates what your team can actually ship
  • DecisionAgent remembers what you tried before and why it failed
  • WorkAgent knows what's in flight and what's blocked

Your AI coding assistant now has product judgment, not just coding ability.

The Technical Challenge

This isn't just CRUD. You're building:

  • Agent orchestration - State machines that coordinate multiple LLM agents with different specializations, handling failures and synthesizing results
  • Real-time context synthesis - Event-driven architecture processing webhooks from GitHub, Linear, Notion, Slack, extracting semantic meaning from unstructured data
  • Conversational interfaces - Chat UIs with branching logic, extraction agents, and background orchestration that feel natural but are technically complex
  • MCP protocol implementation - We shipped production MCP integration 2 weeks after Anthropic launched the spec. You'll be extending it as the protocol evolves
  • Multi-source intelligence - Combining signals from code (GitHub), work (Linear), strategy (Notion), and conversations (Slack) into coherent product context

What We've Shipped

  • Conversational onboarding with state machines and extraction agents
  • VelocityAgent that calculates team throughput from GitHub commits
  • Decision Intelligence that remembers rejected features and why
  • Real-time Work Pipeline synthesis across all your tools
  • Strategic Context Engine that extracts vision and goals from documents
  • MCP integration so Cursor/Claude can access all of this

About The Role

You'll own entire agent systems end-to-end:

  • Build new agents - Design and implement specialized agents (FeatureAgent, TechDebtAgent, etc.) with LLM-powered reasoning
  • Agent infrastructure - Improve orchestration, add monitoring, optimize context windows, handle edge cases
  • Integration layer - OAuth flows, webhook handlers, MCP servers, API design
  • Full-stack ownership - React/Next.js frontend, PostgreSQL schemas, background jobs, streaming responses
  • Product collaboration - Talk to users weekly, understand their workflows, make product decisions about what agents to build next

About You

Must Have:

  • 4-8 years building web applications with end-to-end ownership
  • Strong TypeScript fluency
  • Experience with async/event-driven architecture
  • AI-native mindset: Heavy Cursor/Claude/Copilot user who's felt the pain of AI tools lacking product context
  • Experience integrating with third-party APIs (OAuth, webhooks)

Strongly Preferred:

  • Built conversational UIs or chat interfaces with complex state
  • Worked on developer tools or infrastructure products
  • Experience with LLM APIs (Anthropic/OpenAI) and prompt engineering
  • Next.js 15 and PostgreSQL expertise
  • Understanding of product management workflows

Bonus:

  • Contributed to open source developer tools
  • Built MCP servers or Claude Desktop extensions
  • Experience with Inngest or similar orchestration tools
  • Shipped features that required product judgment, not just technical execution

Our Stack

Frontend: Next.js 15, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Radix UI

Backend: Next.js API routes, Inngest, PostgreSQL/Supabase

AI/ML: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT-4, Vercel AI SDK, MCP

Integrations: GitHub, Linear, Slack, Notion, Fireflies, Fathom

Infrastructure: Render, Supabase, Clerk, Sentry

Why You Should Apply

  • You're building the future of product development - AI agents that have product judgment, not just coding ability
  • Technical depth + product impact - Complex agent orchestration that directly affects how teams build products
  • Extreme ownership - You'll design, build, and ship entire agent systems. Your code goes to production daily.
  • Direct user feedback - Talk to users weekly. See your agents make real product decisions in their workflows.
  • Shape the category - We're defining what product intelligence for AI coding means. You'll help figure it out.

What Won't Work:

  • Need lots of structure and defined requirements
  • Want to build it right before shipping
  • Uncomfortable with AI coding tools
  • Pure frontend or pure backend focus

Compensation

Salary: $140k-180k (based on experience and location)

Equity: 0.5-1.5% (early team member grant)

Benefits: Unlimited PTO

Visa Sponsorship: At this time, we cannot sponsor work visas. Applicants must be authorized to work in the US.

Work Environment

In-person, in our San Francisco office. We're a high trust get-shit-done team, so locking in at home is fine when needed, but the industry and product move too fast for fully remote.

How to Apply

Email hello@briefhq.ai with:

  1. Your GitHub profile
  2. Resume
  3. What product decision you wish your AI coding assistant could make (1-2 sentences)

We read every application and respond within a few days.

We are not accepting unsolicited resumes or submissions from external recruiters or agencies for this role.

Brief is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse team. We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, and veterans. We believe diverse perspectives make us better at serving our customers.

Job Tags

Part time, Work at office, Visa sponsorship, Work visa,

Similar Jobs

Monster

Production Operator Job at Monster

 ...Title: Production Operator Location: Port Allen, LA Duration: 6 months contract with extension 10 hours a day job from Monday to Thursday 6:00 AM 4:30 PM The Operations Specialist position is responsible for performing production activities in compliance with applicable... 

Burnes Home Accents

GIS Intern Job at Burnes Home Accents

 ...Description A well know construction company is seeking a GIS Intern to Performs GIS mapping, analysis, and data collection to assist the GIS Analyst. Will be required to assist in field data collection. Responsibilities Conducts GIS research involving literature... 

Online Remote Jobs

Data Entry Clerk Remote Job at Online Remote Jobs

 ...About the job Data Entry Clerk Remote Remote work from home. data entry clerk, typing, copy pest, survey answer, survey complete, Sign Up, get started now. Thank you for checking us out! Work From Home Data Entry Jobs - Part Time, Full Time We are seeking... 

Benchmark Group, Inc.

Mechanical Designer - Entry Level Job at Benchmark Group, Inc.

Brief Description Benchmark Group is looking for dynamic, talented individuals to fill our Mechanical design positions. We are always looking for people of exceptional talent, integrity, and professional commitment to be members of our Project Team of Choice. The right...

Cirrus Systems, Inc.

SDR Manager Job at Cirrus Systems, Inc.

 ...integrated solution that includes indoor and outdoor displays, content management, sensor technology, analytics software, and proactive hardware...  ...Executives. This leader will build a strong, metricsdriven SDR function that consistently delivers pipeline, supports revenue...