Wildcard — Founding Engineer

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $160,000–$200,000 + competitive founding equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None available Reports to: Kaushik (Founder & CEO)

About Wildcard

Wildcard is the AI SEO platform that helps retail and e-commerce brands win at ChatGPT Shopping. As AI replaces traditional search, it gives brands the tools to track how their products appear across AI engines, optimize product data and on-site content for AI recommendations, and enable instant checkout directly inside ChatGPT through OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol. Founded by Kaushik, a former engineering manager at Scale AI, where he built product data pipelines for Walmart, Coupang, Shopify, and large marketplaces.

Founded: 2025 | Team size: 1–10 (Seed) | Backing: Y Combinator Traction: 6 live brand customers, 12 new brand meetings booked per week; 2.5 years of runway even after these hires Industry: AI Tools Website: wild-card.ai Office: San Francisco, CA

Why Candidates Should Join

• Engineer #1: Genuine founding seat — not joining a team, building one. Shapes architecture, culture, and what gets built from day one.
• Market at an inflection point: AI commerce is moving fast and nobody, not even the model labs, has fully figured it out — that ambiguity is the opportunity.
• Real ownership + runway: High-agency role with 2.5 years of runway behind it, direct daily work with the founder, and founding equity.

Intake Call Summary

• Top three filters (priority order, confirmed directly on the intake call): (1) last role at a Series A / Series B or a known fast-moving company, with clear evidence of operating at startup speed; (2) Top-50 school background preferred — a meaningful signal, not a hard requirement; (3) has worked on AI agents / agent-based systems in any capacity (e-commerce background is a bonus, not required).
• Strong full-stack experience in TypeScript, Node.js, Express, React, and Next.js — ships across the stack independently without needing others on either side.
• High agency and high schlep tolerance: resilient through changing priorities and mini-pivots, brings new ideas constantly, self-prioritizes without being managed, excited by ownership and wearing multiple hats.

The Role

Founding Engineer — engineer number one, helping shape both the product and the company from an early stage. A high-ownership role: you help decide what gets built, how, and what gets prioritized as the market evolves.

What You'll Be Doing

• Build incrementality and attribution systems tied to revenue outcomes for e-commerce brands
• Scale browser orchestration and retrieval infrastructure across AI commerce surfaces
• Make core workflows reliable with better queues, retries, and observability
• Adapt the product to emerging agentic commerce protocols and new platform launches
• Build AI agents, MCP servers, and new product surfaces across emerging verticals
• Own the full stack frontend to backend, shipping wherever the highest-leverage problem lives
• Work in tight feedback loops with customers to translate product needs into shipped features
• Shape the engineering culture and architecture of the company from day one

Tech stack: TypeScript, Node.js, Express, React, Next.js; Postgres, Redis, queues / async jobs; browser automation & retrieval infrastructure; LLM APIs, AI agents, MCP servers

Requirements

• 3 to 7 years software engineering at a high-signal company
• TypeScript and Node.js proficiency
• AI agent and LLM API experience in production
• Full-stack product development capability
• Founding engineer mindset, high agency and high ownership
• In-person San Francisco

Green Flags

• Background at Profound, Browserbase, Ramp, Hyperbound, Triple Whale, Pallet, Wrodium, or Scrunch, or any high-signal YC Series A to B company
• Has worked at Scale AI, a top YC company, or a fast-moving early-stage startup where they had real ownership and shipped meaningful product
• Has built AI agents or LLM-powered workflows in production, not just experimented locally
• Has the profile of someone who would be or has been a founder, takes ownership of outcomes not just tasks
• Top school or exceptional engineering pedigree that signals deep technical ability even with fewer years of experience
• Active user of AI-native development tools, moves faster because of the tools, not dependent on them

Red Flags

• Big tech background only with no evidence of operating at startup speed or owning a full product end-to-end
• Job hopper, multiple short stints without clear progression or shipped product
• Has been unemployed for six or more months without a clear reason
• Wants a defined scope and structured environment, this role requires someone who creates structure, not someone who needs it
• No real AI agent or LLM experience, the product is deeply AI-driven and this is a hard requirement

Nice-to-Have

• Postgres, Redis, queues, and async job systems
• Browser automation, scraping, or retrieval infrastructure
• Building reliable production systems with retries, observability, and workflow orchestration
• Building AI agents, including context management, orchestration, and evals
• MCP servers, internal developer tools, or workflow products
• E-commerce, retail infrastructure, search, attribution, or analytics systems
• Building codebases and products that work well with agents

Role Details

Salary$160,000–$200,000EquityCompetitive (founding)On-site policyIn-person, San FranciscoVisa sponsorshipNone availableEmployment typeFull-timeLocationSan Francisco, CA

Benefits & perks: Unlimited PTO, 401(k), daily lunch, company laptop, health insurance, Bay Club gym membership

Screening Questions

None provided on the Contrario role page. Add any you want asked on the CEO call.

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Quick Call with CEO — Intro call with the founder. Stage 3 — Take-home Assignment — Technical take-home. Stage 4 — One-to-two-day Work Trial — Short paid working trial. Stage 5 — Offer Extended Stage 6 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

From the Green Flags card / Ideal Companies section (all 8 shown — none truncated). Target backgrounds — Profound, Scrunch, Wrodium, Hyperbound, Triple Whale, Pallet, Browserbase, Ramp; plus Scale AI, any top YC company, or a high-signal YC Series A–B startup.