---
title: 'Founding Engineer - Backend at antes.ai'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-engineer-backend-antes-ai-san-francisco-1s7ee0gm4wkv'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Founding Engineer - Backend at antes.ai

- **Company:** antes.ai
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-10-22
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/antes-ai/am9icG9zdDo-2VrXnL4aGuqGqC_Hflz_

## Job description

## About the Role

We're looking for a high-agency Backend Engineer to define and build features and foundations powering our AI automation engine for hardware engineering, used by global enterprise customers. You’ll implement scalable, secure infrastructure layers that support agent workflows for processing large volumes of engineering data including millions of technical requirements. You’ll also create systems to connect, filter and sort critical information for our customers' product development workflows - building extensible interfaces between enterprise hardware design tools and our own systems.

This is a deeply technical, high-impact role. You’ll be joining as one of the first technical hires, working directly with the founders to build mission-critical systems driving the future of engineering in complex physical industries. If you excel under ambiguity, have a knack for thinking across systems and want to do it while working directly with early customers to understand their needs and rapidly ship product features, this is your role.

## Key Responsibilities

- Ship Product Features: Own backend services, APIs and storage components that help automate complex processing tasks across thousands of documents and engineering design data.
- Infrastructure Ownership: Lead efforts in enterprise-grade infrastructure to support high volumes of LLM calls, RBAC, security, and deployment for AI products.
- Design Tool Integrations: Build interfaces to connect existing enterprise design tools including product life management (PLM), CAD and CAE (simulation) directly to our agents
- Data Ingestion Pipelines: Build robust pipelines to handle PDFs, spreadsheets, engineering drawings, 3D models, structured/unstructured data, and convert them into usable formats.
- Move Fast, Learn Fast: Prototype rapidly, validate ideas with real users, and ship frequently.
- Help Shape the Company: Influence engineering culture, architecture decisions, and the future of the product. Required Qualifications
- Strong programming skills (Python, SQL, Rust etc.) and experience building APIs, services, and data pipelines
- Proficient in API creation, data-schema and system design, concurrency and data-structures
- Track record of shipping production features
- Excellent problem-solving abilities and comfort with ambiguity
- Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with customers or stakeholders

## Preferred Qualifications

- 2+ years experience in backend, or ML infra engineering roles
- Experience with CAD or other design data
- Previous experience building integrations to enterprise software
- Exposure to enterprise security, SSO, RBAC, or interest in learning fast
- Familiarity with NLP/LLM tooling and document processing workflows
- Familiarity with Docker, CI/CD pipelines and cloud-native infrastructure

## About antes.ai

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Antes builds AI-driven compliance software for complex manufacturers, automating the interpretation of regulations and bridging engineering and legal workflows.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Rongfei Lu and Nick Goodson

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Artificial Intelligence, Manufacturing, Legal Tech, RegTech, Hardware
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise (complex manufacturers in automotive, aerospace, and industrial sectors)
- **Mission or purpose**: To automate engineering compliance and accelerate innovation at the intersection of AI, hardware, software, law, and policy.

## Products & Services
- **Antes Compliance Platform**: An AI-driven platform that automates the interpretation of complex regulations for manufacturers. It integrates legal, policy, and engineering requirements into structured workflows, helping in-house teams align product specifications with regulatory requirements.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (Seed stage)
- **Key Metric**: Raised a **$4.6 million seed round** in April 2026.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Backed by **General Catalyst**, **Kleiner Perkins**, and **Lingotto** (the parent company of Ferrari). Advisory board includes a former president of Hyundai, a former CTO of Caterpillar, and a former Chairman of the FAA and FCC.
- **Growth Signals**: Antes is a very early-stage startup (founded in 2024, team size of 1-10). The company has already partnered with "some of the world's most iconic automotive, aerospace, and industrial manufacturers," per their career page. They are hiring for their first few technical roles (Founding Engineers) to build the core product.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep Domain Expertise**: The founding team uniquely combines AI research, advanced engineering, and regulatory policy expertise, including an America's Cup world champion and a former global legal compliance lead at Uber.
- **High-Impact Partnerships**: Early partnerships with globally recognized manufacturers in heavily regulated industries provide a strong starting point for product validation and customer development.
- **Novel AI Application**: The company is building AI agents that can interpret and manipulate complex engineering design data, a technically challenging and specialized niche.
- **Elite Investor Backing**: Backed by top-tier VC firms (General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins) and a strategic corporate investor (Lingotto/Ferrari).

## Strategic Focus
- **Product Development**: The current focus is on building the core AI infrastructure and automation engine for hardware engineering compliance workflows.
- **Talent Acquisition**: As a seed-stage company, the immediate priority is hiring the first few founding engineers who will own mission-critical systems and set the technical and cultural direction.
- **Customer Adoption**: The company plans to use its seed funding to further develop the platform and expand adoption among manufacturing customers.

## Why Work Here
- **Massive Ownership & Impact**: As one of the first technical hires, you will own mission-critical systems end-to-end, shaping the architecture, product, and engineering culture.
- **World-Class Team & Backing**: Work alongside a founding team with deep expertise in AI, engineering, and policy, supported by premier investors.
- **Hard Technical Problems**: Tackle novel challenges in AI, hardware engineering, and information retrieval, building systems that directly impact real-world manufacturing.
- **Culture**: Described as fast-moving, high-impact, and collaborative. The company values rapid prototyping and direct customer collaboration.
- **Work Policy**: **In-office** in San Francisco, CA (posting states "SF in-person highly preferred; open to exceptional remote").
- **Compensation & Equity**: For Founding Engineer roles, the salary range is **$180,000–$250,000** with **0.1%–1% equity**. Visa sponsorship (H-1B, O-1, OPT) is available.

## Sources
1. [gem.com](https://jobs.gem.com/antes-ai)
2. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/antes)
3. [preqin.com](https://www.preqin.com/data/profile/asset/antes/797135)
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/job/founding-engineer-applied-ai/9963738)
5. [careers-page.com](https://www.careers-page.com/davidjoseph-co/job/4R667787)

## Other roles at antes.ai

- [Regulatory Data Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/regulatory-data-operations-lead-antes-ai-berlin-w3ptz3av0pdd) — Berlin, Germany
- [Founding Engineer - Applied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-engineer-applied-ai-antes-ai-san-francisco-rh6d9nanmkpr) — San Francisco, CA