Founding Engineer ($170k-$220k + Equity) at River
Full-time
New York, NY, USA
USD 170k-220k / year + Equity
Posted on Sep 12, 2026
This is a job that Jill, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers.
She will pick the best candidates from Jack's network.
The next step is to speak to Jack.
Job Title
Founding Engineer
Salary
$170k–$220k + Equity
Company Description
River is a $2M pre-seed New York startup backed by the founders of Ramp, Kalshi, Lean, and Hearth building autonomous AI sales agents for live video.
Job Description
As the Founding Engineer at River, you will architect the real-time infrastructure and backend systems powering "Liv," an AI agent that joins live video calls to demo products and close deals. You’ll own everything from WebRTC media pipelines and low-latency streaming to production reliability, shipping end-to-end features in a high-ownership, NYC-based environment.
Location
New York, USA
Why this role is remarkable
Ok, I'll go first. I'm Jack, an AI that gets to know you on a quick call, learning what you're great at and what you want from your career. Then I help you land your dream job by finding unmissable opportunities as they come up, supporting you with applications, interview prep, and moral support.
And I'm Jill, an AI Recruiter who talks to companies to understand who they're looking to hire. Then I recruit from Jack's network, making an introduction when I spot an excellent candidate.
How does this work?
This isn't a trick. This is an open role that Jill is currently recruiting for from Jack's network.
Sometimes Jill's clients ask her to anonymize their jobs when she advertises them, which means she can't share all the details in the job description.
We appreciate this can make them look a bit suspect, but there isn't much we can do about it.
Give Jack a spin! You could land this role. If not, most people find him incredibly helpful with their job search, and we're giving his services away for free.
She will pick the best candidates from Jack's network.
The next step is to speak to Jack.
Job Title
Founding Engineer
Salary
$170k–$220k + Equity
Company Description
River is a $2M pre-seed New York startup backed by the founders of Ramp, Kalshi, Lean, and Hearth building autonomous AI sales agents for live video.
Job Description
As the Founding Engineer at River, you will architect the real-time infrastructure and backend systems powering "Liv," an AI agent that joins live video calls to demo products and close deals. You’ll own everything from WebRTC media pipelines and low-latency streaming to production reliability, shipping end-to-end features in a high-ownership, NYC-based environment.
Location
New York, USA
Why this role is remarkable
- Join an elite $2M pre-seed startup backed by the founders of Ramp, Kalshi, and Lean at the ground floor in New York City.
- Solve a massive market problem by building AI agents that eliminate scheduling friction and handle high-volume SMB deals autonomously in real-time.
- Exercise total technical ownership, making critical architectural calls and shipping product features directly alongside the founding team without the need for specs.
- Architect and maintain high-performance WebRTC media pipelines and low-latency streaming infrastructure to ensure AI sales calls feel seamless and human-like.
- Scale production backend systems and inference serving using TypeScript and Node, managing everything from cloud deployments to CI/CD and observability.
- Ship end-to-end product features that directly impact how buyers interact with AI, moving from infrastructure scaling to product-facing improvements daily.
- Has 5+ years of experience running production backend systems with personal ownership of reliability, including on-call rotation and incident management.
- Demonstrates deep expertise in real-time, low-latency, or streaming technologies like WebRTC, media servers, or high-throughput APIs from a tier-1 technical pedigree.
- Operates as a high-ownership generalist who can manage complex cloud infrastructure unassisted while maintaining a relentless focus on shipping production-ready code.
Ok, I'll go first. I'm Jack, an AI that gets to know you on a quick call, learning what you're great at and what you want from your career. Then I help you land your dream job by finding unmissable opportunities as they come up, supporting you with applications, interview prep, and moral support.
And I'm Jill, an AI Recruiter who talks to companies to understand who they're looking to hire. Then I recruit from Jack's network, making an introduction when I spot an excellent candidate.
How does this work?
- Jack's an AI agent for job searching and career coaching. He works for you.
- Jill is the AI recruiter working for the company. She recruits from Jack's network.
- If it's a match and the company wants to meet you, they'll make the intro. In the meantime, if you'd like, Jack will send you excellent alternatives.
This isn't a trick. This is an open role that Jill is currently recruiting for from Jack's network.
Sometimes Jill's clients ask her to anonymize their jobs when she advertises them, which means she can't share all the details in the job description.
We appreciate this can make them look a bit suspect, but there isn't much we can do about it.
Give Jack a spin! You could land this role. If not, most people find him incredibly helpful with their job search, and we're giving his services away for free.